


Mercury in Virgo

by habenaria_radiata



Category: Shin Megami Tensei: Devil Survivor, Shin Megami Tensei: Devil Survivor 2
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst, Body Swap, Humor, M/M, Multiple POV's, antagonistic Abel/Yamato (background)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-10-02
Updated: 2018-01-04
Packaged: 2019-01-08 08:53:16
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 10
Words: 32,695
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12251088
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/habenaria_radiata/pseuds/habenaria_radiata
Summary: If it were only Abel acting strangely, Hibiki was sure he could deal with it. Abel had taken a blatantly hands-off approach to the situation so far, so it should have been manageable -- but with Yamato acting even more strangely, things seemed a little more...precarious. Especially since they still had a toxin spewing Septentrione to deal with.Spoilers for Septentrione Arc & Devil Survivor[ABANDONED]





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> **Update** : This work can be considered a divergent scenario of my crossover fic, [Night Daze](https://archiveofourown.org/works/4676351/chapters/10673555). I had initially intended for this piece to be entirely separate from Night Daze, but enough of Abel's history and quirks have derived from it it that I felt it prudent to post a link to the original. If you've enjoyed this work so far, I hope that you'll like Night Daze. If you've read Night Daze and are coming into this one, I hope you like it too! That said, neither one is required to understand the other.
> 
> Thank you for reading. ♥

* * *

   
  
    The past few days had more than taken their toll. When they weren't in the middle of dealing directly with some bizarre gauntlet of star monsters, they were stepping into frays between civilians, trying to defend supplies, or sneaking around on covert missions behind Yamato's back. And when he wasn't busy helping out with any of the above, Hibiki was having the shit startled out of him by a strange demon lord with an even stranger sense of humor.  
  
    It was exhausting, but Hibiki was sure he could handle it. At least, he was sure he could handle it before they'd seen what looked to be photos of the world being literally _eaten_ by some enormous black void. That was a pretty intense downer, and Hibiki wasn't sure he felt super great about the implication that Yamato was intentionally hiding it from them. He was confident Yamato had his reasons, but Hibiki couldn't help but wish they were reasons he felt more compelled to share with the class. The others already distrusted him as it was -- some more vocally than others -- and even Abel talked shit without ever having spoken to him.  
  
    Fortunately for Hibiki, he had Daichi there to keep him sane. After leaving Fumi with her photo, the two of them had decided to spend a little bit of time outside before they had to return to the Tokyo branch and find out what horrible new way people were dying today. It was astonishingly nice out which, honestly, did seem kind of insulting. He always sort of imagined the end of the world would have shittier weather, but the sun was shining and it was pleasantly cool. He supposed he'd take what he could get. Odd as it was, it was better than the alternative.  
  
    Daichi was in the middle of telling him something when Abel exploded into being in front of them both, his cape billowing out on either side of him and his feet hovering a few inches from the ground. Poor Daichi shrieked in surprise. He nearly bowled backwards until Hibiki caught him by the bicep, and he sagged forward himself as he clutched at his shirt. "Jeez, Abel!"  
  
    Absurdly enough, Abel actually looked just as startled as the two of them, like it wasn't something he did all the freaking time. He blinked and stared at them silently, his bright red eyes dipping low. Then he lifted his arm to eye the simple black band looped around his own bony wrist. Hibiki watched his eyebrow quirk before Abel lifted his head and blinked again a little owlishly. "Hibiki."  
  
    Hibiki couldn't help the crankiness that seized him. He frowned hard and rubbed at his sternum. "You told me you'd only do that in emergencies."  
  
    Abel stared at him more. His gaze felt oddly more...piercing than usual. "Did I?" he asked. "My apologies."  
  
    What the hell? Hibiki bit at the inside of his bottom lip and tilted his head. "That's pretty formal for you. But actually, since you're here, there's something I wanted to ask you. We're going to try and reach Fukuoka today. Did you want to come with?"  
  
    Abel leaned away from him. Both his eyebrows lifted, and he folded his arms as he peered down at him from his even higher vantage point. Why did he have to make it a point to float like that when he was already taller than him? "Why are you interested in Fukuoka?" His face barely changed, which was already kind of strange. Abel was one of the most animated people he'd ever met. Maybe he was having an off day.  
  
    "Er..." Hibiki cleared his throat a little awkwardly. "We saw this picture of what's left of it, it seems? There's this weird black void that looks like it's chewing on everything. We're gonna try and go check it out. Which...I guess in retrospect, that sounds kind of stupid. I mean, it's not like we're going to get anything out of it if JP's already couldn't, but now everyone's curious with Ronaldo stirring the pot, so...we're going anyway. Or at least, we're going to try. Fumi said she wasn't allowed to give us the terminal code."  
  
    Abel's eyes shifted, roving over Hibiki's face from top to bottom. He never blinked at all, but he did squint a little. "Did she now?"  
  
    "Hey, Hibiki, check it out!" Daichi's voice cut through the awkward silence that'd rolled in between them, and Hibiki turned to follow his fingertip. Daichi was pointing straight at Yamato Hotsuin, who was striding past them with an aluminum can clutched in his fingers. Apparently he was on a mission, because he didn't even look at them once, much less twice.  
  
    Hibiki perked up, and he grabbed at Daichi's elbow. "Come on! We should go talk to him."  
  
    "Wait, what?! You're just going to go talk to him like you're buddies or something? Why would you even _want_ to?" Daichi dug his heels into the ground and twisted his arm to grab at Hibiki's wrist. "Er, I don't think we should," he stammered. "He looks even more pissed off than usual."  
  
    He could feel Abel bristle beside him, but Hibiki ignored them both and looked over to where Yamato was approaching a few scattered JP's agents who were all staring at the sky. He actually did look remarkably pissed. His jacket was rumpled, and his hair was even messier than usual. But still, Hibiki saw him so infrequently he didn't feel like passing up the opportunity, and he dragged Daichi towards him. "Well, yeah, we should. We still haven't been debriefed or anything. We know about the void thing, but we haven't heard anything about today's Septentrione. Come on, he's not going to bite you-"  
  
    "Chief Hotsuin!"  
  
    One of the agents turned as Yamato finally made it to them, but he paused as he noticed Yamato's drink. "Are you...drinking coffee, sir? That's kind of unusual."  
  
    Yamato squinted at him so coldly that Hibiki could feel the chill even from where he was standing. With a curl of his lip, Yamato threw the can over his shoulder and crossed his arms moodily. "Are you gonna tell me why everyone is staring at the sky like it's about to start falling, or are you just going to keep criticizing my choice of beverage?"  
  
    "E- Er, no sir!" A little wildly, the man gesticulated towards the sky. "Uhm, have you not been given the reports? N- Neurotoxins have been dispersed throughout Tokyo, sir."  
  
    Hibiki watched in mounting shock as Yamato pursed his lips and stared down at the man like he was wasting his time just by existing. "Huh. That sounds pretty shitty," he said simply.  
  
    Apparently the agents were just as taken aback as Hibiki, because they fell totally silent for several seconds. Eventually, a second agent felt brave enough to inch towards him. "Uhm, sir, are you...feeling alright?"  
  
    "Peachy." Yamato pinched his lips a little tighter before he sighed. "Long night." Just when he seemed like he was going to chill out, he threw one of his hands to his hip and glared at every one of them. "What gave it away? My meticulously curated appearance, or that I have the eye bags of a man who hasn't slept since Adam choked on an apple?"  
  
    From his shoulder, Hibiki could hear Daichi snorting faintly and wrinkling his nose. "See? I told you he was pissed! Long night? Really? Long night doing what, pulling off more creepy conspiracies?"  
  
    "Oh my god," Yamato snapped. Hibiki should have guessed he'd be able to hear them now that they were close enough, but even as he was steeling himself for the brunt of his rage, Yamato didn't move to face them at all. Had he not seen them approach?  
  
    Hibiki could actually see the tension ripple down his back as Yamato straightened up, and he glared down his nose as his terrified grunts. "Fine, whichever one of you smartasses just said that. You want it put less diplomatically? I was up all night feeling too awkward to take a piss. Would you like me to get you a fucking dossier with all the details? Not to spoil the ending or anything, but around the 5AM mark, things start to get pretty god damned hairy."  
  
    The first agent immediately jabbed a finger towards the three of them, and Yamato whirled around with irritation sharp on his face until he finally realized they were there. His anger melted away in a split second, and he offered Hibiki an almost sweetly crooked smile. "Oh, hey, Hibiki."  
  
    "Er- hey, Yamato," he managed. Hard to pretend it wasn't completely surreal to see him do a one-eighty like that, but it did make him feel kinda warm and fuzzy. "Did you say something about neurotoxins?"  
  
    "Oh. Yeah." Yamato sagged forward, his shoulders slumped and his hands shoving themselves deep into his pockets. He looked extremely annoyed that anyone expected him to even care. "Gee, someone should probably do something about that."  
  
    "S- Sir? We should probably fall back. We've been exposed too long..."  
  
    Yamato snorted at the guy and rolled his eyes. "To what? _Air_? Yeah, that oxygen will really fuck you up."  
  
    The two agents looked askance to one another. "So...what would you have us do?"  
  
    The most aggravated sigh Hibiki had ever heard bubbled up from Yamato's throat as he whipped back around with his jacket snapping around his ankles. "Seriously, what are you waiting for me to say? I mean, I assume we're standing here because the trajectory of these stupid toxins is pointed this way, probably towards that massive tower that's got magic pouring off it like it's a god damned fog machine at a cheap Halloween party. Obviously something is dropping them since they're not popping up from the ground, so whatever it is is up in the sky. Good job, gang, we solved the fucking mystery." With his hands still in his pockets, Yamato leaned forward and swung around to stare at Hibiki and toss his hair. "Now let's go so I can get some more coffee without someone crawling up my ass about it."  
  
    The second he finished speaking, Hibiki watched a vividly hot pink and purple pod plummet down from the sky and crash land right in the middle of the agents. Yamato remained perfectly still, his back bent and his eyes closing in the understanding that he was definitely going to be expected to deal with that. He pivoted on his heel and eyed the pod impassively while two of the agents broke away to flank it.  
  
    "Yeah, that's a good idea," he called. "Let's stand right up against the alien pod like a bunch of dumb ass red shirts on their first day on the job."  
  
    As he apparently expected, the pod exploded, sending a burst of what had to be the neurotoxins in question billowing into the air. Hibiki flinched away, but it soon became clear he was at a safe enough distance. Not so for the poor JP's agents.  
  
    The man closest to it collapsed directly into the center of the outspread toxin, and the four of them watched in varying degrees of horror which ranged from none at all (specifically, Yamato and Abel), to near panic (Daichi), with Hibiki uncomfortably in the middle. He broke away from Daichi to step closer, but he stopped as Yamato's arm slid out to block him from going any further. "Wh- Don't!" Yamato snapped, throwing his head back in annoyance as the female agent rushed into the mess to help her comrade. "Don't fucking go in after him! He just died in like three seconds! Oh, for fuck's sake."  
  
    "Uhm, we really should do something, though," Hibiki finally said, reaching around and grasping at Yamato's sleeve. He flinched in the expectation of Yamato turning his uncharacteristically intense ire on him, but he merely tilted his head towards him and wrinkled his nose.  
  
    "Leave before we all choke to death on neurotoxins? I mean, I'm just spitballing here, but-"  
  
    For the second time that day, Abel appeared directly in front of them. Hibiki jumped against Yamato, but Yamato just glared at him as Abel's pale face contorted in anger. The hostility was damn near dripping off him. "You are _not_ about to waste this opportunity," he hissed.  
  
    Truth be told, his anger freaked the hell out of Hibiki. He'd never seen Abel so upset. But to his endless astonishment, Yamato was completely and utterly unmoved by this bizarre demon overlord he was supposed to not have seen before. He just rolled his eyes and folded his arms again. "What opportunity? We can't even fucking see whatever it is farting out all these Death Pods, so it's either really tiny, which I doubt, or it's invisible. Regardless, we can't actually _do_ anything about it, unless you expect me to pull a bunch of fancy equipment directly from my asshole."  
  
    Abel's red eyes narrowed into catty slits, but he didn't respond. Hibiki couldn't help but grip tighter at Yamato and pray that he shut his mouth before Abel shut it permanently. He didn't, though. He just stood there glowering at him until something vibrated in Yamato's pocket, and he paused and glanced down.  
  
    Though he clearly didn't want to, Yamato grudgingly pulled his phone out and flipped it open. He threw his head back with a melodramatic flourish. "UuuggghhhhhhhhhhHHHHH. _Fine_."  
  
    Hibiki blinked as Yamato pulled away from him. His phone looked...strange. It looked like it had red on it rather than his familiar yellow, but Yamato left him so quickly he didn't get a good look at it. He stormed away, purposefully slamming his shoulder into Abel's own as he approached the broken pod with his phone pointing towards it. "I swear to god, I'm never rubbernecking another apocalypse ever again." He stood there for a few seconds before he pulled his arm back and eyed his screen curiously. "Alright, coordinates got. I feel like you guys should be way more impressed that I have such a convenient app on my phone. It's almost as if we anticipated this exact event or something."  
  
    He snapped his phone shut and moved to walk back to them when a second pod thundered to the ground, and right along with it, two miasmas bubbled up from the sidewalk.  
  
    Yamato pinched tightly at the bridge of his nose. "Mother fucker."  
  
    Predictably enough, a few Wendigos and Pyro Jacks sprang up from the miasmas while Yamato surveyed them with resignation. "Right, well, I appreciate that you guys seem to think that I'm invincible. It's super flattering, and you stepping in is pretty much just prolonging the inevitable anyway. But if you'd also like to prolong _your_ inevitable, you should probably come help me instead of standing there staring at me like a bunch of slack-jawed fucking rubes." He glanced backward and smiled. "No offense to Hibiki."  
  
    Daichi jerked back. "Hey! I'm here too!"  
  
    Yamato scoffed. "Shijima, we all know I meant exactly what I said."  
  
    Before he could say anything more, one of the Wendigos beside him burst into a column of flame. Hibiki jerked his head over to see Abel with his pale arm outstretched, his eyes very close to glowing and his blue hair billowing. "Do you _ever_ stop talking? I sincerely cannot tell if you're making the effort to be as obnoxious as possible, or if you're really just that enamored with the sound of your own voice."  
  
    A lesser man would have quailed, Hibiki was sure. But Yamato remained totally unimpressed. He rolled his catty eyes again and wandered towards the next pod to take its coordinates like he wasn't being berated by a demon royal. "I know you're just trying to be a dick," Yamato said, "but I actually do like the sound of my own voice, yes."  
  
    "Just shut up and do your job," Abel snarled. He spun away from him with his cape lashing out behind him like a cat's tail, and he hurtled towards another cluster of enemies and lifted his arms. Yet more fire spat from the earth, swallowing the screaming demons in one fell swoop. Abel dropped back and peered at his own outstretched hands as if bewildered. Then he smiled, a sharp, familiar smile that definitely didn't belong on his face. "...This _is_ fun."  
  
    Hibiki was absolutely mystified. Abel was acting like it was his first day with powers. He tried everything from enormous bolts of lightning, to ice bricks to windstorms, and it got to the point where Hibiki actually kind of felt bad for the demons. He really did feel like a useless rube, because he and Daichi didn't have to move at all. Abel devastated everything alone while they watched, and Yamato collected all the coordinates despite being colossally annoyed by it. By the time they were done, it was clear that it was a massacre. Yamato pocketed his phone and crossed his arms.  
  
    "There, consider your fucking opportunity capitalized. Happy now? Sorry, I don't mean to encourage the perception that you've ever been happy. Satisfied, then, let's go with that one."  
  
    Perhaps unwisely, Daichi slunk a little closer and leaned over Hibiki's shoulder. "So have you two...met? You're pretty hostile for strangers-"  
  
    At the exact same time, both of them glowered at him and grit their teeth. "Shut up, Shijima."  
  
    "Whoa. Way harsh, guys." Hibiki patted sympathetically at Daichi's elbow. "He has a point. I thought you didn't know each other."  
  
    He watched them both stare at each other like they weren't entirely sure where to go from there. So they just didn't. Yamato flashed his closed phone into Abel's face. "Since it was so god damned important to do this, I'd think someone should probably get it back to JP's." He clearly expected Abel to offer, but he very pointedly did not. He stared at Yamato until he finally grew fed up. "Are you fucking serious? You can literally teleport there in seconds, but you know what, that's fine. I'll just schlep it there myself on my shitty mundane human legs, no problem."  
  
    Yamato shoved his phone back inside his pocket and scowled at Abel so hard it was like he thought he might be able to hate him to death. "I'd tell you to go fuck yourself, but to be honest, I'd rather you didn't. Later, nerds." He flashed two fingers at them before he flipped Abel off, and he stormed away while Daichi watched his retreating back.  
  
    "...Holy shit."  
  
    That was probably putting it mildly. Hibiki chewed at his lip and let his eyes flicker over to where Abel was still grimacing to himself. Finally, Daichi sighed and scratched at the back of his head. "So, Yamato is acting weird."  
  
    "Weird?!" Hibiki blurted. He moved closer to Abel and felt himself frown. "Yamato isn't acting weird, he's acting like _you_."  
  
    If he didn't know any better, he'd say the expression on Abel's face looked strangely like relief. It was short-lived, however, and he regarded Hibiki mildly. "Oh?"  
  
    "Yes. Abel, you didn't...I don't know, do something to him, did you?"  
  
    He hated to accuse his friend of anything, but Abel had already been extremely blunt about his opinion of Yamato. Abel didn't seem terribly upset, though. He merely tilted his head and offered Hibiki another disconcerting smile. "I did not."  
  
    "Oh. Well...good."  
  
    Abel brushed the front of his shirt off and peered up at Hibiki from beneath his eyelashes. "If that's all you need, I'll be going."  
  
    "No, wait!" Before he could fly off, Hibiki reached out to grasp at his wrist. "I thought you were going to Fukuoka with us? To be honest, I'm kind of nervous about it. I'd feel better if you were there."  
  
    Abel seemed surprised by that. His lips pursed into a faint frown, but eventually, they twitched up at the corners instead, and he smiled again. "Then I'll be there. Do let me know when you're ready. I'll be around." He paused and lifted his hand towards the sky. Sunlight bounced off the dark bangle around his wrist. "I'm never far away, after all."  
  
    With those enigmatic words hanging in the air, Abel bowed shortly and vanished with a crack.  
  
    He slumped against Daichi and rubbed at his face. "Just when you think it can't get any weirder."  
  
    "Don't say that, idiot!" Despite his words, he threw a companionable arm around Hibiki's shoulders. "Now it's going to."

    Hibiki wasn't sure how it could.

    Perhaps that's what jinxed it.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter was beta read by Shigarakisans.

* * *

 

    God, Abel was tired. Actually, no. He was 'tired' like a thawed out caveman was 'disoriented': technically true, but not quite adequate.  
  
    He kept trying to think of a metaphor that could properly convey just what he was feeling in case anyone cared to ask (which, with a sniff, he doubted), but he just couldn't come up with anything that actually worked to his satisfaction. At first he thought of himself kind of like a reanimated mummy being woken after eight million years. Sure, it got across that he was utterly dazed, everything was weird and different, and his shitty, worthless body was falling apart. But he also felt like it would be an egregious error not to somehow include the fact that now he had to eat and sleep again, and it was really fucking him up.  
  
    And everything felt like it took a god damned eternity. Waking up that morning left him feeling like he'd slept through an entire millennia, and gathering those stupid coordinates seemed to take ages too. It was extremely weird to open his phone and realize only about an hour had passed from the time he'd stumbled out of the Diet Building with a can of coffee, to standing there now ambling around like a half-drunk moron.  
  
    Fuck, this was so stupid. He should have known better than to try and stick his nose into someone else's apocalypse. It was true that he'd missed being a human, and he definitely hadn't gone into this bullshit expecting to be handed the chance to try it out again. But damn, he was not willing to pay this kind of price to re-experience the trials and tribulations of being mortal. He'd rather go back to being a terrifying godking, thanks very much.  
  
    The reminder was enough to force him to take note that his feet were sore from all this god damned walking. He missed flying, and god, did JP's really have to be such a freaking trek?  
  
    He was jarred from his pity party by his own body materializing from thin air about two feet in front of his face. Abel reared backwards and wheezed a bit as he reached up to clutch at his chest. "Holy shit." Ugh, he probably did that on purpose. Abel glared up at the asshole currently wearing his face, and he pursed his lips and rubbed at his chest. "Well, I can see why Hibiki doesn't like that at all, so, thanks for that."  
  
    "Shut up," Yamato hissed. One of his hands shot out and nearly jabbed him right in the sternum, his palm flipped towards the sky. "Don't say another word and give me your phone."  
  
    Abel blinked at him before he knocked his own hand away and scoffed. "Okay, A, no, and B, go shit in a hat, I'm not giving you my phone."  
  
    It was almost amusing to see how incensed Yamato became, but the fact that he was doing it in Abel's body just made it weird. With a savage snap, Yamato buried his hand into Abel's (er, technically his own) pocket and snatched his phone up. Abel responded by shoving his palm over Yamato's entire face and forcing him backwards. "Really? If you want to get handsy, people will start to talk."  
  
    "You-"  
  
    Yamato stopped and pushed a sharp, irritated sigh through his nose. "I don't have time for this nonsense." He flipped Abel's phone open so hard it was a wonder it didn't snap right in half, and he began pushing buttons as he ignored Abel entirely.  
  
    Whatever he was doing was beyond him. Abel hardly cared, though. He barely even gave a shit about his phone when he didn't even have any demons of his own. Mostly he just wanted to spite Yamato, which wound up being less satisfying than he'd anticipated.  
  
    When Yamato finished, Abel glanced up and was startled to see a massive...metal feather-looking creature drifting in the sky towards the spot they'd vacated.  
  
    Yamato bared his teeth and glared at him. " _Great_. It's headed towards the tower. It's already passed overhead, thanks to you wasting our time."  
  
    Abel squinted at him and snatched his phone back. Then he gasped when realization finally struck. "You dickhole! You already had this built in to the stupid app? You were going to let me take this all the way back!"  
  
    His response was swift and cutting. "I'm here, which would suggest I changed my mind, wouldn't it?"  
  
    Abel paused. "...Yeah, I guess that was kind of stupid." Then he blinked and glared at him again. "Also, fuck you. I wasted your time? You just spent five minutes dicking around with a calculator to figure out where it's going when I already guessed the tower was its target. Who's the genius astrophysicist now, asshole?"  
  
    It was hard to feel smug when Yamato was still looking at him like he was the most brainless troglodyte that ever got lucky enough to roll out of a swamp. Abel made a sour face and huffed. "Still you, I know, shut up."  
  
    He turned away from him to sulk while Yamato went right back to ignoring him, pulling out his own yellow phone and putting it to his ear. When the other person answered, Abel could faintly make them out. "Yes, Chief Hotsuin?"  
  
    "A Septentrione is approaching yo-"  
  
    "Who is this?!"  
  
    Abel couldn't help but turn around and watch as Yamato's eyes squeezed shut. He looked like he was about to fucking explode with irritation that his subordinates would dare question him, but given that it was Abel's voice coming out of his mouth, yelling at them would make him look like a total prick and also prove Abel right. Clearly, Yamato was not about to offer him that satisfaction.  
  
    He was silent for a bit, then opened his eyes and stared at Abel thoughtfully. When he opened his mouth again, Yamato's voice came sliding out with his usual smarmy sort of drawl. Abel cringed sharply and scowled at him.  
  
    "It's Chief Hotsuin. Is there a problem?" he snapped. Abel shuddered again and pointedly looked away. It wasn't anything he'd ever given any thought to before, but watching someone else with his face and a different voice was extremely unsettling.  
  
    He worked hard to actively tune out the rest of their boring conversation and went back to watching the creature Yamato had referred to as Alioth. Obviously that was the thing responsible for dropping all the death pods everywhere, so someone was going to either have to figure out how to get up there, or bring it down to them. Given that it was going to come down somehow regardless, it seemed like a simpler task to just shoot it the fuck down and go from there.  
  
    "Was I somehow unclear?" Yamato's voice grew so hard and callous that Abel was jarred back into paying attention again, to his displeasure. "Cut the damn power!"  
  
    My, my. Someone was pissy. Abel laughed to himself and leaned closer to him. "Ooh, busting out the 'd' word. Saucy. I guess-"  
  
    The words promptly gave way to silence as Abel found his own fingers digging so hard into his jaw it nearly cracked. Yamato kept him there for the entire rest of the conversation, holding him at bay like he was a particularly aggressive puppy until he hung up. Finally, he let go and eyed him coldly.  
  
    Fuck, that hurt. Abel rubbed at the ache blossoming along his face and glared at him. "You want to break your own jaw, knock yourself out, asshole. I think you're just mad because my impression of you wasn't actually that far off after all."  
  
    Abel had assumed Yamato would get yet angrier, but instead he just snorted at him with a grim sort of amusement and folded his arms. When he spoke again, his voice lapsed back into Abel's. "Please. You either think very highly of yourself, or you presume I'm as gullible as the masses."  
  
    What the fuck. Abel pulled away in both confusion and a strange sort of defensiveness. "I get that you're attempting to insult me, but I'm not sure how. What, you don't think I can actually do an impression of you or that I...wouldn't?"  
  
    "I think you actually making the effort to mimic me would display the type of foresight I don't believe you capable of for even a second. I think you were just being yourself."  
  
    Hard not to be put out about that. A slow grimace pulled across Abel's face. "Whatever. Nice voice trick, by the way. If you could not do it again, that'd be swell. It's wigging me out."  
  
    For a brief moment, Yamato stared directly into his eyes. It made him feel like he could start digging around inside Abel's brain if he just thought about it hard enough. Eventually, Yamato sneered at him. "You had no idea you could do that, did you?"  
  
    He hadn't, no. Abel waffled a bit stupidly before he sniffed at him and looked away. "I've never needed to sound like anyone other than myself, so...no." A subject change seemed in order to escape Yamato's scathing judgment, so that's what Abel did. "Anyway, are you going to get that giant death machine out of the sky, or are you just going to make Hibiki do it?"  
  
    Apparently he needed to stop trying to anticipate Yamato's reactions, because he didn't think that one would actually get to him. It clearly did, though, and Yamato curled his lip at him in annoyance. "I'm not going to make Hibiki do it. _You_ are going to make Hibiki do it. And you're going to start doing a better job doing _my_ job, or we're going to have a problem."  
  
    "Are you kidding me?" Abel tilted his head back and barked with laughter. "Fuck that. Do you really think I know how to be you, much less want to? Yeah, no. This fucking sucks, and you're completely deluded if you think I'm just going to let you dangle me in front of Hibiki to make a bunch of asinine, cryptic comments on your behalf. Have you never heard the phrase 'don't bullshit a bullshitter'?"  
  
    Yamato stared at him, silent, still glaring at him but actually listening. Yeah, didn't feel great to be totally called out like that, did it? As far as Abel was concerned, he could suck it.  
  
    He grit his teeth and threw his annoying hair back from his eye. Yamato needed a fucking haircut like yesterday. "I may not know you, but I know what you're about. I've already dealt with someone like you, and it's not fucking fun. Don't pretend like you need time to 'figure out' a countermeasure. I'd bet my ass you already have one, and you're just going to watch Hibiki scramble around like a moron trying to do his part in this game when you already know all the moves. It's shitty."  
  
    Yamato remained quiet. Abel kind of hoped he wasn't gearing up to murder him, because there was no way he was in any position to defend himself in Yamato's lame ass body. When Yamato finally moved again, Abel flinched.  
  
    "What are you?" Yamato murmured.  
  
    It took him a second to process. "...I'm the King of Bel."  
  
    "The what?" Abel watched his face contort in confusion. "What the hell is that?"  
  
    "Ugh." Abel wrinkled his nose. What a fucking pleb! "I'm basically a godlike overlord of the demons. Don't get cocky, though. This isn't my universe, so these demons aren't going to suddenly bend to your will. I know because I already tried."  
  
    Yamato raised his eyebrows but said nothing. Abel took that as his cue to continue, and he sighed and rubbed at his forehead.  
  
    "I blundered here by accident and met Hibiki, so I decided to stick around. This is like...your catastrophically shittier version of something I already went through, which is why I even am the King of Bel at all. It's also why I'm not going to jerk Hibiki around by the dick like you're apparently willing to do. What are you getting out of it anyway? I'm not convinced you couldn't take care of all this entirely on your own. What's the point of you dragging him into it?"  
  
    Yamato cocked his head. He seemed amused that Abel hadn't already guessed whatever ridiculous reason he had for toying around with Hibiki. "I think he has the potential to change things."  
  
    It sounded simple enough, but Yamato said it like it was something profound. Abel made a face at him before he sputtered, and he lifted his chin and narrowed his eyes. "What the fuck is wrong with you? You want to wager his life to see his _potential_? I don't know if you fucking noticed, but your entire world is pretty much gone. What's going to be left to change by the end of it?"  
  
    Predictably, Yamato barely even reacted. He looked kind of bored, in fact. It was so fucking surreal to watch him wearing Abel's skin when he was so clearly not Abel. His body language was wrong. His back was straight and his shoulders were stiff, even when his legs were relaxed where he looked like he was lounging in mid-air. What an uptight dickhead. He was making Abel look like some two-bit anime villain.  
  
    "I hardly expected you to understand," he noted, his voice mild and his fingers moving to pluck a bit of lint from Abel's shirt with distaste. "At any rate, time is a luxury we don't have. If you refuse to cooperate, then I won't continue to waste it in the hopes that you see reason."  
  
    Abel paused. That was technically what he wanted, but that Yamato gave in so readily was...alarming. He probably didn't need him at all, but what if he had been willing to feed him the information he did have so Abel could relay it as appropriate? What if he'd just made his impassioned oath not to lead Hibiki on just to royally dick him over instead?  
  
    Oh, fuck. He had a perfect opportunity, and he blew it just to spite Yamato. "Uhm, hold up a second."  
  
    A narrow blue eyebrow lifted with so much disdain Abel almost wanted to punch himself in the face. He took a deep breath and refrained, however. "Alright, this is stupid. You were right. I'm sure it would be easier for everyone else if I just suck it up and pretend to be you. I'll...try," he said, the words deeply bitter on his tongue. Ugh, now he was going to have to act like he was walking around with a stick up his ass.  
  
    "Oh? That about face came quite abruptly," Yamato commented. Abel was kind of afraid he was going to question him further, but in the end he relented and offered him that creepy half-smile, half-smirk. "Perhaps you're not as much of a simpleton as you present."  
  
    Abel was going to sprain Yamato's eyes rolling them so much, but he couldn't help it. "I know that being smart is literally the _only_ thing you have over the rest of the proletariat, so I'm sure it was very hard for you to admit that, but yes, I am actually smarter than you assume. So, what are you going to do?"  
  
    Yamato pressed backwards faintly and frowned at him. "Pardon?"  
  
    "What are you going to do in return for me presiding over your ridiculous yellow lemmings? Are you going to make the effort to act more like me?"  
  
    For the first time Abel had ever heard, Yamato laughed so hard it sounded genuine. "You must be joking. I don't intend to do that, no. That said, I admit I'm intrigued as to why you think you're in any position to bargain with me."  
  
    Abel grimaced hard. Jesus, he was such a prick. "Well, shitlungs, for starters, I'm not above making you look like a total moron if you won't." He advanced forward and jammed a finger into Yamato's sternum.  
  
    Yamato just knocked him backwards and scoffed at him. "I can hardly fathom you embarrassing yourself any more than you already did today. You'll have to do better than that."  
  
    Now it was Abel's turn to laugh, which he did. Raucously. "Oh, man. If I were you, and I am now, I'd walk that back as quickly as possible, because I will _absolutely_ interpret that as a challenge, and I will _absolutely_ send Makoto a truckload worth of dickpics and tell her I meant to send them to Hibiki."  
  
    Yamato blanched immediately, and it was the most glorious fucking thing Abel had ever seen in his life. Abel smirked back at him and slid his hands into his pockets. "Now that we've established that you actually do care very much, I will say I was totally bluffing. Jesus, Hotsuin. My moral compass is kinda fucked up at this point, but it does exist, and I do draw the line at unsolicited dickpics."  
  
    "...Fine." He didn't bother to hide how incredibly irritated about it he was, but he did at least see another opening to insult him, so Yamato went for it. "How would you have me best take your place? Should I speak like a child who just learned he can make adults uncomfortable by swearing?"  
  
    Abel was determined not to let that barb get under his skin. He shrugged and flicked a dismissive hand in Yamato's direction. "If thinking about it like that helps, go wild. You'll probably still sound like a pencil-necked little dweeb when you try, but the effort will be amusing to see."  
  
    They both fell into silence as Yamato stared into him. "Go fuck yourself," he said.  
  
    "Hey, that was actually pretty good." Despite himself, Abel couldn't help but snicker. "Seriously, though. Lighten up, Francis. I don't know why you're so mad about today anyway." He lifted his eyebrows at Yamato pointedly. "I was only marginally more abrasive than you already are, so if I changed anything at all about your reputation, it's that I made you look like a rude asshole who is also extremely hilarious. You're welcome."  
  
    "Ugh." Sourly, Yamato pulled away from him and yanked his phone out. "I'm leaving. I'll contact you when the countermeasure is complete-"  
  
    "Oh, goodie."  
  
    "-and you can present it to Hibiki. Just go to headquarters and try not to make a nuisance of yourself."  
  
    With irritation rippling through his body, Yamato rolled away from him and snapped his fingers. He winked out of sight with a crack, leaving Abel staring at the spot he'd vacated. "Jesus, that is so annoying," Abel grumbled.  
  
    Apparently he had a lot to think about. Grumpily, he trudged back to the Tokyo branch of JP's, feeling even more tired and kinda lightheaded. Was he hungry again?  
  
    God, being a human totally blew.


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter was beta read by Shigarakisans.

* * *

 

 

    Why couldn't they both want a dancer?  
  
    It would have been so much simpler. Hinako had pointed out that if she was going to be busy dancing for Shiva, she couldn't exactly entice Kama to waking too, but at the very least, they could have had someone else give it their best effort. Hell, Hibiki could have tried his hand at it. Or he could ask Abel! He loved that shit! Hibiki had once watched him massacre an entire courtyard full of demons while he _literally_ danced to his MP3 player.  
  
    But no. That just wasn't awkward enough.  
  
    Airi was already staring at him with expectation in her dark eyes. There was a non-zero chance she would sock him right in the nose the instant he finished his request.  
  
    He licked his dry lips and held out both his hands as if he were about to try and placate an extremely tiny velociraptor. "Okay, so, we're going to try and summon Kama."  
  
    "Alright..."  
  
    She looked totally weirded out, which was fair. Hibiki felt diminished that she wasn't familiar enough with that particular legend to make the connection, which meant Hibiki was really just going to have to come straight out with it.  
  
    He tensed and spread his fingers a little wider. "...and we need your help to do that. Hinako is going to dance to summon Shiva, and then we need you to act..."  
  
    Her dark grey eyes narrowed faintly.  
  
    Hibiki swallowed.  
  
    "...sexy."  
  
    "What did you just say to me?!"  
  
    For being so small, her voice projected so much it was kind of amazing. Her utterly scandalized words echoed through the empty streets, and it was enough to catch the attention of Yamato, who was evidently on his way back to headquarters.  
  
    Hibiki almost collapsed in on himself right then and there, because Yamato was either about to witness him getting slapped in the face or kicked in the balls. Or both.  
  
    "Hey, Hibiki." He wasted no time joining them, already regarding Hibiki with his familiar half-smile before he turned and quirked a brow at Airi. "Am I...interrupting?"  
  
    He may as well be honest. Hibiki sighed and glanced over to Airi, who still looked ready so spit poison out of her eyes like the world's most adorable dart frog. "I was asking Airi for help to summon Kama. He, er, apparently requires sex appeal."  
  
    Yamato bent in half and laughed so hard that Hibiki was legitimately concerned he was going to choke. He laughed long and hard, his gloved fingers clutching at his knees as Airi swelled with rage. "Oh my god," he wheezed. "And you asked her?! _Why_?" Finally, he straightened up, but his face was flushed in his hysterical amusement. "What, are you banking on him kinking on verbal abuse? I mean, we don't exactly have a database for demon fetishes, so, I don't know, maybe he does."  
  
    Airi's small fists balled on either side of her hips, and she thrust her chin up at Yamato as if she were seriously considering trying to stab him with it. "Wh- Are you saying I can't do it?!"  
  
    Yamato sniffed and wiped at the corner of his eyes. "Yes, pipsqueak, that is what I'm saying. What are you, like, twelve?" Airi launched herself at him. He leaned back before she could get to him, and he extended one long leg and held her back with a foot planted against her chest as she flailed at him.  
  
    "I'm fifteen, you unbelievable jerk!" She swung a fist at him, but the poor thing could hardly reach his face. He simply held her there and tossed Hibiki a look of bemusement.  
  
    "So, was everyone else busy? I'm not going to comment on the desirability of Makoto or...those other two, because as their boss, that would be inappropriate. But, what?" He tilted his hip slightly and planted a hand over it as he quirked an eyebrow at Hibiki. He looked completely oblivious to Airi still struggling against him like she thought she could bowl him straight onto his ass. "Hinako couldn't do it?"  
  
    Awkwardly, Hibiki cleared his throat and wound his arms around his middle. "She's gonna be busy summoning Shiva."  
  
    "That does explain a lot." Yamato finally deigned to look back at Airi, who sagged forward against his foot before she grabbed his calf and shoved him off her.  
  
    "You're the _worst_. Don't act like you know anything about what's sexy!"  
  
    "You're totally right, that was rude." Yamato bit down on his lip like he was trying to stifle another round of intense cackling. "I'm a sexless nerd who has definitely never seen a human boob in person, so you probably shouldn't take my word for it."  
  
    That was enough that both Hibiki and Airi were totally thrown off. They exchanged weird looks before they were back to focusing on Yamato. Airi hesitated. "Are you just being sarcastic and making fun of me?"  
  
    That was enough to rob him of the last vestiges of his mirth. Yamato straightened again as his face collapsed into a look of bored annoyance. "I was insulting two birds with one stone, actually, so...technically yes."  
  
    Rage rippled through her tiny body once again, and she clenched her teeth. "Screw you, Yamato! I can do it!"  
  
    Yamato laughed again, his mouth pulled into a wide, genuine grin as he leaned down and gripped at his knees again. "Oh, I'm sure you can," he crooned to her, like he was speaking to a particularly rambunctious six year old. "I'm rooting for you. Go get 'em, tiger. Just-" He let go of his knees to grasp at his tie, and he pulled it taut, then indicated it with his other hand. "If you do find yourself struggling, you can borrow my BDSM tie."  
  
    "Wh- ew! What the hell is wrong with you?!"  
  
    She was definitely going to blow a gasket. Hibiki inched behind Yamato as her face turned almost as red as her hair. "I AM going to do it! And I don't need your creepy BDSM tie! SEE IF I DON'T! Er...do. Shut up!!" Fuming, she whirled away with her scarf flickering through the air, and she stomped away from them. As soon as they were alone, Hibiki turned his face up towards Yamato and nearly jumped a foot in the air as he felt an arm drape around his shoulders.  
  
    "You know, if sex appeal was what you needed, you could have just dropped the pretenses and called me," Yamato purred. Hibiki could feel the heat damn near radiating from his skin as he blushed wildly. He was sure he could cook bacon on his cheeks.  
  
    "Uhm, what?"  
  
    Yamato sighed at him and frowned in disappointment. "Hibiki, it was a joke. Have you looked at me?" He gestured towards his own body with his free hand and eyed Hibiki a little balefully. "I look like a walking stick who made a New Year's resolution to get a gym membership and then got bored after two weeks."  
  
    "Oh." Hibiki rubbed at his overheated face and glanced back at him. "Well, it works for you."  
  
    An intriguing mixture of emotions seemed to cross Yamato's normally impassive face. At first he looked kind of flattered, then _super_ irritated. Then...confused. Hibiki watched him, baffled as Yamato's brows furrowed like he was questioning something. Eventually, he wrinkled his nose and stared straight into Hibiki's eyes. "No accounting for taste. Anyway, I'm about to head for the Diet Building. Do you want to come with-" He paused, then, and rolled his eyes. "Would you care to accompany me?" He sounded distinctly like he was being pretentious on purpose while also making fun of the fact that he was doing so. It was...bizarre.  
  
    "I can't, I'm going to go grab Daichi. But I'll see you there soon?"  
  
    For a split second, Yamato looked sullen. He actually wanted Hibiki to hang out with him? It flustered the hell out of him. He wanted to be excited, but Yamato's unbelievably weird behavior today made it difficult. "Can I ask you something?" he blurted.  
  
    Yamato blinked and tilted his head. "Of course."  
  
    Great. Now he actually had to follow through. Hibiki met his gaze with helplessness gripping at him. He rubbed at his biceps and opened his mouth. "...Did you and Abel switch places or something?"  
  
    "What?" Yamato's face screwed up immediately. "Pfffft. Of course not, Hibiki. That would be ridiculous."  
  
    Hibiki narrowed his eyes at him. "That sounds exactly like something Abel would say. We're in a fucking demon apocalypse. I just had to ask a fifteen year old girl to act sexy to summon a creepy ancient demon sealed away in a metal can. You can't seriously act like body swapping is _so_ absurd in comparison, or that I'm an idiot to ask."  
  
    He took a deep breath and squared his shoulders as he and Yamato faced off. Yamato was totally silent, and his face was pulled into something thoughtful. In an instant, Hibiki's sudden bravado deserted him. What if it really was Yamato and he'd just spoken to him with that same rude familiarity he reserved for Abel?  
  
    Just as he was about to start panicking, Yamato chuckled smoothly and reached up to ruffle Hibiki's hair with a smirk. "You're too smart for your own good."  
  
    He slid his hand away to pocket it. His head dipped in a short nod, and he spun on his toe. "I'll see you back at headquarters," he called to him. With that, Yamato took his leave while Hibiki was left to watch his retreating back.  
  
    "Yeah... Later."  
  
    That had hardly been an answer. Then again, Hibiki hadn't exactly expected one. He imagined that if they had switched places, they must have a reason for not just saying that. If they didn't it would be completely nonsensical to go to these lengths to hide it. Plus, Yamato was a brilliant astrophysicist, and Abel was practically a god. If they were stuck in such a frankly silly situation, surely those two of all people could figure out how to get out of it?  
  
    Still... Hibiki sighed to himself. He should probably gather up his friends and head back to JP's so they could start setting things into motion. Despite being deliberately antagonistic to her, Yamato had, oddly, managed to convince Airi to do it after all when she'd clearly been gearing up to tell Hibiki he could go fuck himself.  
  
    The sound of rocks shifting on gravel caught his attention. Hibiki turned around, and he very nearly tripped backwards into the road as Abel came into view. He took a deep breath and pushed his hair back. "I don't think you're ever not going to startle the hell out of me."  
  
    Abel frowned softly. "My a-" He stopped short, hesitated, then frowned harder. "...Sorry," he said. "I did try not to."  
  
    That was true enough. Abel had never teleported behind him before. The effort was sweet, and Hibiki found himself laughing. "It's okay. I do appreciate that. What's up?"  
  
    "I was curious to see how it was going," he said simply.  
  
    "Oh." He brightened and motioned in the direction Yamato had just wandered towards. "You just missed the fireworks, actually. Airi wasn't exactly enthused about it, but she agreed to help us summon Kama. Hinako will be helping with Shiva, of course. I'm pretty sure she's the only one besides you who can dance."  
  
    The look on his face was hard to pinpoint. Abel was still frowning, but it had an edge of disbelief to it. "Right," he muttered. "That was quick." That mild of look of distant irritation fell away, and Abel regarded him instead with an enigmatic smile. "I'm hardly surprised."  
  
    "Aha." Embarrassed, Hibiki reached up to scratch the back of his neck. "I can't really take credit. All I did was ask them. If they hadn't agreed to do the hard work, we'd be pretty screwed."  
  
    "Perhaps," Abel agreed. He watched Hibiki quietly. He appeared to be debating something before he moved to speak again. "What possessed you to ask Ban?"  
  
    Oh Jesus. Hibiki snorted and raised his eyebrows. "Why? Would you have volunteered if I asked you first?"  
  
    "Wh-" A sour expression twisted over Abel's features. His eerie red eyes dropped down to his own chest for several seconds. "Is that a...suggestion?"  
  
    "No. Airi already agreed. I'm just giving you a hard time, Abel."  
  
    "Right."  
  
    A silence rolled between them as heavy as fog, and for the second time, Hibiki couldn't help but _wonder_. But before he could get too deep into that thought process, Abel pushed closer to him, his arms crossed and his feet drifting several inches above the ground. "I think we should head back. I'm sure you want to get this done quickly, no?"  
  
    "Yeah, of course."  
  
    Abel nodded with satisfaction and unfolded his arms. He extended them towards Hibiki with a soft smirk seizing his lips. "May I?"  
  
    What? Hibiki could admit he was both intrigued and totally baffled. "You...want to go right now? I was going to go grab Daichi-"  
  
    "He has a cell phone," Abel reminded him patiently. "I can take you back right now."  
  
    Oh.  
  
    Gosh.  
  
    His neck burned so intensely he felt certain his skin was going to peel off like paint. "Uhm, okay." He nodded, and he stood there as Abel scooped him up into his arms. It was very much doubtful that he would drop him, but Hibiki couldn't help it. He clutched tightly at his neck as Abel lifted him with almost embarrassing ease. For the first time since Hibiki met him, he actually got to vanish into thin air with him.  
  
    It was quite fun. No wonder Abel did it so often.


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter was beta read by Shigarakisans.

* * *

 

 

    He was taking to this new teleportation ability with remarkable ease. In only seconds, the empty streets of Tokyo were replaced by the bright gold interior of JP's manifesting around them. To his satisfaction, they'd ended up right in the open floor of the command center, where the tower of various clock faces rose up before them.  
  
    Hibiki looked rather more disoriented there in his arms. Yamato sympathized; he'd felt similarly the first time he appeared somewhere else quite by accident.  
  
    "That is so cool," Hibiki blurted. He swiveled his head to stare around the building. The expression he wore suggested it was his first time seeing it, which amused Yamato quite a bit. He tilted back from him and glanced down where his arms were 'supporting' Hibiki's weight in the loosest sense of the word. Truth be told, his hands were barely touching the boy's body. Abel's unfathomable magic was doing the bulk of the work, seeming to linger beneath Hibiki's knees and across his back like a second set of intangible limbs.  
  
    Yamato was loathe to admit it, but this magic was incredible. It reacted to the most errant of his thoughts. He could summon infernos or electricity or blizzards without having to go so far as to actually concentrate at all. The sheer intensity of it was all the more noticeable here inside his own building. Any time he had reason to be indoors, the confines pushed the magic closer to him, making him strangely more aware of it as an entity. It slid up the walls in a way that gave him the impression it resented having to occupy a distinct space.  
  
    "Uhm, hey, Abel?"  
  
    Yamato shifted again and dropped his head to stare at him. He was still holding him like Hibiki was some sort of damsel while he'd rhapsodized like a fool.  
  
    He tilted his torso sideways in an attempt to deposit Hibiki to his feet when he looked up to spot a deeply familiar and insulting irritant staring at him. No doubt he had some obnoxious comment--  
  
    Abel's face contorted, and he arched one of his eyebrows. "I'm sorry, did our meeting get in the way of your honeymoon?"  
  
    Ignoring him as hard as possible, Yamato righted Hibiki and crossed his arms. Hibiki brushed off the front of his shirt, the sides of his neck growing slightly red. "Uhm, sorry."  
  
    To Yamato's shock, Abel had the decency to look chagrined. He sighed and dragged the gloved edges of his fingers along the back of his neck. "No, I am. That was unnecessary." He was being uncharacteristically civil. Now to see how long that would last.  
  
    He watched his own features screw up again a little sourly, and Abel flattened both hands in front of Hibiki and cocked his head at him. "I'm gonna level with you. I'm starting to get kinda hangry."  
  
    Infuriatingly, Hibiki actually laughed at that and put a fist to his lips. "That's pretty unfortunate. Are you okay? Can you get something to eat before we start?" Why was he laughing? That oaf could not possibly be so entertaining. Hibiki's good opinion of him baffled Yamato completely, but it wasn't as though he could ask about it _now_.  
  
    "Meh, it's fine." Abel looked very much like it was not fine, but Yamato had no intention of doing anything for his benefit. If he couldn't find his own food, he could starve. Of course, Abel remained oblivious to his uncharitable musings, and he looked around to survey the otherwise empty room. "Where's the rest of the Mystery Gang? Because, I'm not going to lie, I'd be fine with this entire meeting consisting of you and I just sitting here for thirty minutes." He jerked his head over towards Yamato with a short roll of his eyes. "I'll even tolerate Batman over there."  
  
    Hibiki laughed again. The red had crept up to his face, but he didn't acknowledge it. "Let me text Daichi. This was sort of impromptu."  
  
    There weren't a plethora of safe places to go in a half destroyed city, so it only took a few minutes for them to be joined by the rest of the 'Mystery Gang'. Yamato had deigned to Google it with his phone while he waited, his curiosity getting the better of him, but he should have known not to bother, because all it pulled up was a bunch of useless cartoon pictures.  
  
    "Abel?"  
  
    He had just shut his phone with a curt snap when Hibiki's voice caught his attention. "Yes?" He pocketed it and looked up to meet the boy's eyes.  
  
    By now a few of the others had showed up, so Abel was no longer afforded the opportunity to be a meddlesome busybody. It also seemed to be the exact reason Hibiki was looking to talk to him. The boy grasped at Yamato's arm and drew him a little further from his compatriots. "So...are you sure you're okay to be here?"  
  
    Yamato looked at him strangely. Why wouldn't he be? Obviously JP's itself was not designed to keep him out, which was alarming enough. He was going to have to seriously consider the ramifications of the fact that someone like Abel could just appear in and out of it by whim. "Why do you ask?"  
  
    "Well..." Hibiki let go of him and tucked his skinny arms around his middle. "When we first met, you were pretty adamant that you didn't want anyone from JP's to see you. I mean, you did turn yourself into a cat."  
  
    A noise of disbelief erupted from him before he could stop it. Now that was interesting. Abel had wanted to avoid them so strongly he turned himself into an animal? How absurd. What on earth did he have to fear from any of them? Yamato had already combed through their database. It was empty of any creature that was even roughly on par with Abel. They knew nothing of him. Had he not known that and wanted to be cautious? Or was there another reason?  
  
    He realized he'd been silent too long with a concerned expression overtook Hibiki's face. He cleared his throat and drummed his fingers against his forearm. "I decided I wasn't particularly worried about it."  
  
    "Oh."  
  
    Hibiki fell silent, but his bright blue eyes continued to search his face. He didn't look suspicious, necessarily. He looked...concerned. That was unusual. Eventually, however, he dropped his arms and sighed. "Are you-"  
  
    They were interrupted once more by the arrival of the Nagoya group. With that, they were ready to begin. Of course, as was to be expected, Abel was standing there like a vacuous moron, staring moodily at the floor while Sako stood awkwardly at his shoulder. "Sir?"  
  
    "What?"  
  
    "We're ready to begin."  
  
    He looked at her like _she_ was the moron before he evidently realized what he was meant to be doing. "Oh, right." Yamato pressed a thumb and forefinger against the bridge of his nose and squeezed savagely. He tried not to think about setting anything on fire, because Abel's magic was liable to do it at the slightest provocation.  
  
    "Right. Well." Abel rocked back onto his heels and eyed them with his hands still stuffed into his pockets. "Alioth has reached the half-way point between here and Sapporo as of..." He paused to fish his hand out and flicked his wrist in front of his face. "Now. So...we're basically playing the waiting game. Which isn't that interesting, but it does mean you guys have a second to breathe before I make you go risk your lives trying to kill it."  
  
    Couldn't resist, could he? At least he'd managed to offer a kernel of meaningful information. Luckily for Yamato, since he wasn't particularly enthused about being responsible for destroying his own body in a fit of pique, Yanagiya stepped up and inclined her head towards this frankly inferior 'Chief'.  
  
    "How are we to intercept Alioth, sir?" she asked.  
  
    Abel wiggled his hand back down into his pocket and rolled his shoulders up. "We're going to shoot it down."  
  
    Maybe he wasn't completely hopeless. Maybe he had indeed defied all Yamato's expectations and actually read the damn reports.  
  
    "Shoot it down? How?"  
  
    Shijima. Yamato curled his lip immediately, but he soon became distracted by watching Abel's face. He was clearly just as irritated, which was almost amusing. Abel eyed Shijima so balefully that for a second, it felt like looking into a mirror rather than watching someone do a poor impersonation in his skin.  
  
    "...Kinda figured you guys would have worked that out amongst yourselves, but okay, sure." For the second time, his hand popped back out of his coat, and he motioned towards Hibiki. "You want to take it from here?"  
  
    The cretin skimmed them at best. Even when he was being slightly less manic than usual, he still went out of his way to do everything possible to irritate the fuck out of him. Yamato grit his teeth and turned to face Hibiki. Hopefully he'd alleviate his growing temper.  
  
    Hibiki delivered. He shuffled forward with a hesitant smile for Daichi's sake. "We're going to summon Shiva. It seems like his Pasupata is the only thing that can reach Alioth while also being strong enough to actually bring it down."  
  
    Bless Hibiki. At least one of them wasn't a complete dimwit. It was nice to be around someone who didn't constantly need things explained to him as if he were a toddler.  
  
    Kujou jarred him from his thoughts. She tilted her hips and pressed her knuckles against them. "That makes sense. So, that's why we need Shiva, but you mentioned summoning a second one?"  
  
    "Ah, yeah." Hibiki nodded to her. "We're going to summon Kama too."  
  
    "Exactly." Abel jerked his hand again and tossed his hair out of his face with annoyance pulled across his features, but he was smart enough not to make a stupid comment about it. "Apparently Shiva has a grudge against Kama, so we're going to use him as bait. Pretty slick, right?" An insufferable smirk drew across his mouth. "Shiva can be summoned by a dancer, so Ginger Spice over there has volunteered to field that one. Kama requires sex appeal, whose summoning falls to Tiny." He was almost pleasantly surprised that Abel made it through that one with only minimal incompetence, but he immediately ruined it by snorting with laughter. " _Maybe_ ," he added. Ban hurled one of her loafers at his face, but Abel ducked out of the way and continued on as if nothing happened. What a jackass.  
  
    "One team can take Ginger Spice to the TV Tower in Nagoya to summon Shiva. Kama is at Cine City Plaza in Shinjuku. Once you've summoned them both, we can shoot Alioth down over Sapporo and get on with it. Any questions? No? Good." Abel shook his arm again to peer at his watch. "Great job, team, we only wasted about ten minutes on this meeting exclusively hashing out things you all should already know. I'll call that a win."  
  
    "Wait! I- I have a question!"  
  
    Abel almost groaned out loud. Yamato suspected that the person in question being Nitta was the only thing sparing her from another one of his childish verbal lashings. He watched impassively as Abel turned to face her, then squinted at her before he nudged his sleeve down to steal a glance at his bare wrist. "Yes...Nitta?" Oh for fuck's sake. Yamato had sincerely believed he was just using those ludicrous nicknames to be an ass, but he just didn't know their last names. Unbelievable.  
  
    "I can't believe you like him," he hissed under his breath. Hibiki jumped and glanced at him in surprise. He frowned at him then.  
  
    "I like _you_ too," he whispered back. "You're probably not in a good place to question my judgment."  
  
    Yamato narrowed his eyes. "I know what I said."  
  
    They both stopped and looked back over to Nitta, who had her hand partially raised. "Um... W- When Shiva uses Pasupata, Alioth will be shot out of the sky, right?"  
  
    Abel was genuinely taken aback. The face he was making looked so stupid that Yamato almost cringed, but to his unending frustration, he actually felt a vanishingly small smidge of sympathy for Abel. What an asinine question. Nitta was supposed to be one of the brighter individuals among them. Granted, not an especially high bar to clear -- but the point stood.  
  
    "...Yes," Abel said, his nose curled sharply and his lips pulled into a frown. "I thought that was pretty straightforward."  
  
    Despite his rude tone, Nitta was not to be deterred. Yamato would be approaching something like impressed if he weren't otherwise occupied being annoyed that they were wasting yet more time on something they'd already determined. Yamato rather resented her for making him agree with Abel about something.  
  
    "Wh- what happens to Sapporo when Alioth falls?" she asked.  
  
    Shijima piped up then and successfully grated Yamato's already fragile nerves even further. "Hey, yeah! It'll be crushed!"  
  
    All the eyes in the room shifted towards Abel as if he was supposed to be appalled. What were they expecting him to say? That outcome should have been crystal clear the instant this plan was suggested.  
  
    Apparently Abel agreed, because he threw his head back with a dramatic sigh and threw his hands up. "Jesus, Nitta, you're supposed to be the smart one. Of course it'll be crushed. That's sort of what happens when twelve tons of toxic alien monster fall on top of something."  
  
    A chorus of protest interrupted from them. Yamato gave in and rolled his eyes at their turned backs.  
  
    Abel did the same, but he did it right to their angry faces. "Oh, sit the fuck down. It pisses me off that you're going to ask me a stupid question you already knew the answer to like it was some bullshit 'gotcha'. You idiots should have connected the dots from the beginning."  
  
    His rant was more unhinged than Yamato cared for, but he did have a point. It was unexpected, too, as Yamato had simply assumed Abel would readily take these dolts' sides out of pure spite. Perhaps he was slightly more intelligent than he'd initially credited him.  
  
    He sat back to watch with faint amusement playing over his face while Abel glared at them. "Seriously, I'm insulted that you guys actually think I proposed shooting down a sky behemoth over a city like I somehow expected to get away with pulling the wool over your eyes."  
  
    "Wh- How could you so callous?" Kujou snapped. "Why shouldn't we be upset when you're asking us to level an entire city?"  
  
    "Whoa, whoa." Hibiki squeezed himself in between them to get closer to Abel. "Time out, guys. I really don't think Yamato is suggesting we murder a bunch of civilians. I realize there's a tower and a terminal there in Sapporo, but beyond that, I haven't heard of any existing JP's presence. Are there even any people there at this point?"  
  
    So smart. Yamato's irritation was quickly curbed. Ever the level-headed one. Unlike the rest of the passionately-minded rubes, he could actually think something through without jumping to sentimental conclusions. Abel looked just as grateful for his input, and he thrust a hand towards him.  
  
    "Boom. Thank you. I'm glad one of you isn't a useless waste of space. This is why Hibiki is the MVP and all the rest of you are bench warmers. Yes, Hibiki, you're correct."  
  
    "How's that work?!" Shijima demanded. He was starting to get shrill, no doubt well on his way to panic. Worthless. "You yourself _just_ called it a freaking sky behemoth. How could it not kill anyone?!"  
  
    "Because they're already dead, Shijima. At least try and keep up with the rest of the class," Abel snapped. "Why are you surprised? Hibiki just pointed out that there wasn't a concentrated JP's presence. Where do you think you fuckwits would be if we weren't around? You guys had the benefit of a cadre of people who already had the advantage of dealing with demons."  
  
    Still, Shijima refused to get it. His face was pale, and he kept staring at Abel in disbelief. If he was waiting for someone to tell him something different, he'd be waiting in vain. "Wh- what about all those people?"  
  
    Abel huffed as hard as possible and motioned towards Shijima impatiently. "I honestly do not know how to make it more clear to you that they're all dead. Do I need to make you a chart or something?"  
  
    Yamato watched on impassively. How tiresome. How on earth did Hibiki deal with this all the time? Just watching Shijima look ready to keel over was making him uncomfortable.  
  
    "I feel sick," he whispered. It hardly needed saying, so Yamato wasn't sure why he bothered. Abel jerked back from him, his lips pulling into a grimace.  
  
    "Eugh, if you insist, could you just..." He grabbed Shijima's shoulders and pivoted him until his face was pointed away from Yamato's boots. Naturally, that did nothing to alleviate Shijima's upset (not that Yamato was particularly fussed). After a beat, however, Abel groaned at him and yanked him back around.  
  
    "Alright, look. Cut it out. Why are you so fucking concerned about Sapporo? They're all dead, but we're not. Yes, it's a tragedy, but this entire event has been nothing but non-stop tragedy. Are you seriously going to give up now? If you let this paralyze you, you can't do anything for them _or_ for yourself. You actually have something none of those people ever got: the opportunity to do something about it. Lots and lots of people still don't have that. Stop squandering it. At least if you get up and keep going, you can survive another day. You can mourn all the dead you want to when this is over, but it's not yet."  
  
    Abel let go of him in favor of spinning Shijima around and shoving him towards the door. "Stop fucking around," Abel called after him. "You drove a truck off a building to save your friends. Don't pretend like you don't have it in you to do it again."  
  
    Shijima appeared dazed. "Y- Yeah," he managed. Fortunately for him, Hibiki was quick to join him, and he threw a companionable arm around his shoulders.  
  
    "He's right, Daichi. We can do this. You've got this. We've come too far to let this be the end."  
  
    "Yeah. Hey, yeah! You're right. That was pretty cool, wasn't it?" Shijima was able to muster up a smile, at the very least.  
  
    "Are we cool now?" Abel asked, lifting both his brows. "Good, now get out. You just extended our efficient meeting by another ten minutes, so thanks a lot."  
  
    When they all left again, it was with rather more grumbling, but Yamato hardly cared. That was an interesting display, to say the least.  
  
    It took a moment for Abel to notice that he was still there. He regarded him with a sour expression. "Are you going to lecture me some more? I tried to be all sober and shit, but I can't fucking deal with them. I don't know how you do."  
  
    Yamato ignored his words in favor of gliding closer to him. It was so easy that he feared he'd not handle going back to walking very well. "Is that what you think, or was that your attempt at pantomiming what I think?"  
  
    "Oh, don't flatter yourself," Abel bit out. "You don't really think I give a shit about some city full of dead people, right? Crush it, don't crush it, I don't care. I have a feeling that you have some way to get around it. I really doubt you intend to reign as Chief Supreme over a ruined planet with twelve angry babies left to repopulate it. Er, eleven."  
  
    Hm.  
  
    Maybe there was something to Hibiki's judgment after all. Yamato deigned him with a short smile and tilted his head. "I have a job for you."  
  
    "I'm sure you do." Abel's eyes turned up towards the ceiling, and he made some odd jerking motion with his hand. "What makes you think I want to do it?"  
  
    "Because if you don't, Hibiki's greatly diminished chance of survival will be your fault."  
  
    Abel glared at him. Predictable.  
  
    "What do you want me to do?"  
  
    It would seem they had something in common, after all.


	5. Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter was beta read by Shigarakisans.

* * *

 

 

    Hibiki couldn't remember the last time he hustled that hard in his entire life. With Kama safely flattened out in a daze, Hibiki took the brief respite and bent over to gasp for air. Freaking demons and their bizarre abilities. His striped shirt was starting to cling uncomfortably to his skin where sweat had sprung up during the fray, and the blood was rushing wildly in his ears. Damn, they really won that one by the skin of their teeth. And because Airi pulverized the hell out of Kama with extreme prejudice.  
  
    "Holy shit!"  
  
    He jerked to attention as a familiar voice filtered over to them. Yamato was lounging against the railing with a lazy bend to his spine, his arms folded against the metal as he leaned on it. "Good job, Tiny," he called. "I really didn't think you had it in you." Airi glared at him immediately, but Yamato ignored her in favor of grabbing the rail and hopping over it. "Sorry I ragged on you so hard. You did good, kid."  
  
    He raised his arm for a high five, or what Hibiki would assume was a high five if it was literally any other person on earth. Airi was just as bewildered, and she squinted at him in suspicion. "I feel like this is a trick."  
  
    "While you'd be totally justified in leaving me hanging, I sincerely mean this high five with all of my heart. That was great," he assured her. His hand was still up in the air, and he seemed like he would absolutely leave it there until she indulged him. Hesitantly, Airi high fived him.  
  
    "Er, thank you?"  
  
    Yamato swiveled on his heel to lean over Kama with a weirdly clinical curiosity, given the rest of his behavior. "That you succeeded because he has a creepy and unexpected belly button fetish probably makes this feel like a Pyrrhic victory at best, but hey, who's counting?" He plucked his cell out of his pocket and pointed it at said creepy demon. With the press of a few buttons, Kama disappeared.  
  
    "What are you doing here?" Hibiki had finally recovered enough to make his way over to the pair of them. "Is everything alright?"  
  
    "Hm?" Yamato looked over to Hibiki and smiled at him. To his unending embarrassment, it made his heart skip a beat. "Yeah, of course. I just came to collect Kama," he pointed out, wiggling his cell phone a bit like that ought to be self-explanatory. Airi stared at him.  
  
    "Why?"  
  
    "What do you mean why?" Briefly, Hibiki was nervous he was going to go off on Airi like he had with Io, the former of whom would handle it _much_ more poorly, but to his relief, Yamato didn't. He pocketed his phone and stuck his hands into his jacket. "If we're going to use him as bait, it stands to reason someone has to actually take him to the place where he needs to be bait at, no? I'm taking him to Sapporo. He'll need to be in place for Shiva to have an actual target, or our super cool plan isn't going to make much headway. Speaking of which, I bet you guys thought I was going to make you do something unnecessarily convoluted."  
  
    As one, Airi and Hibiki both stiffened. "Wait, you're going to Sapporo yourself?" Airi demanded. "When Alioth is going to be shot down? Isn't that dangerous?"  
  
    Yamato looked at her again, his face pinched oddly. "Yes? Why?"  
  
    Airi just stared at Yamato like he was an idiot, which was something Hibiki doubted happened very often. Not that it seemed to faze him much. She pinwheeled her arms in frustration. "Because it's dangerous! Duh! What aren't you getting? If you don't time it right you're gonna die!"  
  
    Honestly, Yamato almost certainly knew that already, so there didn't seem much point in telling him. Even so, Hibiki very much agreed with her. He was not at all thrilled with the news that Yamato was going to be escorting a living target himself, especially when it involved traipsing through a city filled with toxins and corpses.  
  
    As he'd anticipated, Yamato just shrugged again and regarded her with a sharp smile. "Are you worried about me? After all the shitty things I said to you? That's actually really sweet. This is going to sound sarcastic purely by virtue of it coming from me, but I'm touched. But yes, it is dangerous. And it's whatever. Someone has to do it. Considering you lot are the ones who are leading the charge to actually kill it, I figure this is kind of the very _least_ I can do, don't you think?"  
  
    Hibiki frowned softly but made no attempt to argue with him. There likely wasn't even time for that. Indeed, Yamato lifted his arm again to check his watch. "I should get out of here. You still need to summon Shiva, right? We're cutting it pretty close."  
  
    Hibiki shook his head and shoved some sweat-damp curls from his eyes. "Nah, Makoto agreed to lead a second team so we could summon them close to the same time." The reminder encouraged him to take out his phone. There were no texts from Daichi or Io, so he figured they were still working on Shiva. Or they got waylaid like him. He fired off a text to let Daichi know Kama was successfully dealt with before he looked back at Yamato. "So I guess we're good on our end. But...you'll be careful, right?"  
  
    Yamato stopped short. He tilted his head, his eyes taking on a shrewd quality that made Hibiki kind of nervous. He smiled, then, and stepped closer to him to squeeze at Hibiki's shoulder. "I will. Only since you asked. Later, kiddos."  
  
    Hibiki watched him go with his heart as still and heavy as a brick. What if he didn't come back? Then again, it was Yamato. He just seemed too...important to meet such a mundane, anti-climactic end. But he was probably just being sentimental.  
  
    "Ugh, what a weirdo." Airi shook her head and turned towards Hibiki. "Want to wait for the other group back at HQ?"  
  
    "Nah. I think I'm going to catch my breath out here. You can go on without me." They parted ways there, Hibiki waving to her before he tugged his jacket off and threw it around his shoulders. What an exhausting day. And it wasn't even noon yet!  
  
    Fortunately for him, he soon found an empty bench that he sank down onto, and he pitched forward to sag over his knees.  
  
    "You seem troubled."  
  
    Hibiki sat up so hard his back almost cracked, but it was near immediately followed with a long, loveworn sigh. "Someday I'll get used to that." He tilted his head to see Abel sitting beside him, his cape floating and swirling in a non-existent wind. Hibiki smiled for the boy and mussed at his hair. "I'm fine. Really. Just trying to catch my breath."  
  
    Abel watched him silently. It was disconcerting to see him being so much more...deliberate than usual. Like Yamato wasn't. "I see," he finally said. "How did your battle with Kama go?"  
  
    "Exhausting, but we got him. Yamato came by to collect him. He said he's taking him to Sapporo." Another frown seized him hard, and Hibiki looked away from Abel to scratch the back of his neck. "I'm worried about him," he admitted.  
  
    From the corner of his eye, he could see Abel cock his head. "I strongly doubt there's any reason to be concerned."  
  
    Of course Abel would say that. It annoyed him more than was probably reasonable, and Hibiki swung towards him with his brows furrowed. "I'm sure you're right. I'm sure if anyone could pull off something that dangerous, it would be him, and I'm sure it's a waste of time to do it, but I'm still worried about my friend. I know it isn't exactly productive, but I can't really help it."  
  
    Abel pulled away from him with his sharp features drawing into...something. Hibiki wasn't sure if it was irritation or disbelief or just confusion. "Friend?"  
  
    "Yes, Abel! Jesus." The last of his patience crumbled. Hibiki squared his shoulders and threw him a flat look. "Are you seriously so disdainful of him you refuse to even acknowledge that much? I get that you don't like him, but what the hell? Why are you so fucking hostile?"  
  
    The moment his tirade died on his lips, Hibiki feared he'd made some mistake. Abel had tilted away from him, his body tense, his eyes wide, and his shoulders bowed like he was worried Hibiki was going to leap at him. "That wasn't-" It took him a few seconds to unravel, but when he did, Abel cleared his throat awkwardly. "I did not anticipate that my question would come across that way. I'm sorry. I was just...surprised."  
  
    Abel had no reason to be surprised, in Hibiki's opinion, but he seemed so sincere that he felt bad for snapping at him so harshly. "It's alright. Uhm, to be honest with you, I'm probably just being a presumptuous loser. He might not be _my_ friend, but I consider myself _his_ friend anyway. That might not be worth anything. I just...I don't get you. You told me you've never met him before. I don't understand why you despise him so much."  
  
    Hibiki watched his bright red eyes cut up to the corners as he scoffed. "Is that a question?" Abel asked, his voice smooth.  
  
    Hibiki glared at him. "You know what, yeah, it is. I'd like to know. Because either you lied to me, or something happened between you. Either way, I think it's pertinent for me to know. Why do you hate him?"  
  
    Once again, Abel fell silent as he considered his response. Eventually, he shifted towards Hibiki and folded his arms. "An unhealthy mixture of projection, toxic insecurity, and a misplaced sense of anger? Just a guess. I'm not a psychiatrist," he assured him, the corners of his lips lifting into a shadow of a smirk that reminded Hibiki very starkly of Yamato. He squinted at him. That did sound like something Abel would say, but...  
  
    "Insecurity, huh?"  
  
    Abel lifted one of his eyebrows. "Do you disagree?"  
  
    He actually did. Abel was a lot of things: brash, impulsive, and very much capable of being a dick at times. Projection and misplaced sense of anger, Hibiki could see given a few of the comments he'd made. But insecure? He had never gotten that vibe at all. Abel oozed confidence, and not the sort of confidence that was in place specifically to mask an inferiority complex.  
  
    Hmm.  
  
    After a beat, Hibiki shrugged. "You would know better than me." His voice was a little more transparently pointed than he'd wanted, but he could hardly take it back. Abel definitely noticed, though. He watched him in yet more silence, his face unchanging and his eyes as penetrating as always.  
  
    "You have something you'd like to say." Abel got comfortable there on the bench, his elbow resting on the arm and one of his ankles shifting to rest against his knee. "I'd like to hear it."  
  
    Damn. Called out. Hibiki tensed and shook his head. "Nah. I'm just imagining things, I'm sure. It's been a weird day. Just forget I said anything." He could tell Abel had absolutely zero intention of doing that, but before he could verbally protest, Hibiki scooted closer to him and leaned forward. "You told me before that you'd eventually describe what happened to you when you went through your ordeal. Can I get an ETA on that? I'd be interested to know. Are you ever going to tell me?"  
  
    The distraction worked, thank goodness. Abel frowned softly. "I'm sure you would. That's a fair question. What is it you'd like to know?"  
  
    He was actually offering? Hibiki tried not to let his surprise be too obvious. He'd been fully prepared to deal with more deflections or reasons why now wasn't the time. "Oh! Well, you mentioned that you knew what it was like to be in my position. Did it ever get overwhelming for you?"  
  
    Abel looked uncomfortable in an instant. He shifted slightly, his foot dropping from his knee and his fingers tightening ever so slightly against the rounded arm of the bench. "Of course. It's...difficult to be thrust into a sudden position of authority."  
  
    What a cop out! He didn't sound insincere or anything, but it was such an obvious answer. Hibiki frowned slowly. "Yeah, it is. Does this mean you feel more comfortable telling me about your history? Or are you just going to keep making cryptic comments about it until it's over?"  
  
    Abel's eyes snapped to his face harshly. "'Cryptic', you say?" They narrowed into slits. Oh shit. Maybe he said the wrong thing. Abel looked super pissed now.  
  
    "Er, yeah. I- I didn't mean to upset you or anything, but you have to admit, that's pretty much what you've done every time I asked you a question about it."  
  
    Just as quickly as it had changed, Abel's face smoothed out, and he fixed another enigmatic smile on him. "I'm not upset at all. Don't mind me. I do apologize for being cryptic. Even so, I must ask that you allow me to get back to you on that."  
  
    Get back to him. Of course.  
  
    His words made enough sense, but it didn't matter. Hibiki didn't believe him at all. They were both being so fucking bizarre. It was as if their personalities had been transplanted into one another overnight: Abel was now the distant, calculating intellectual while Yamato swaggered around like he was physically incapable of pouncing on the opportunity for insults and jokes. He'd asked Yamato, who, logically, should have been the one Hibiki was more afraid to ask. But he hadn't asked Abel.  
  
    If it was true, though, then he _should_ have been more terrified to ask Abel.  
  
    As he now was.  
  
    Hibiki's eyes met Abel's straight on. "You don't actually know, do you?"  
  
    Abel blinked back at him. "I don't know what you mean."  
  
    He exhaled through his nose and tried to shake the anxiety burning through his insides. "You don't actually know the answer to my question. You need to get back to me so you can ask, right?"  
  
    He was not afforded any response at all. Abel's gaze made his skin crawl as he stared at Hibiki relentlessly. God, he was terrifying. Both him and Yamato. They had more in common than they seemed willing to consider.  
  
    After several painful seconds of receiving no answer, Hibiki pushed closer. "Are you Abel?"  
  
    "Yes, I am." Abel was still smiling at him. Hibiki had been terrified he was going to make an ass of himself, or offend him, or both, but Abel looked bizarrely satisfied with him.  
  
    His answer was not satisfying to _him_ , though, and Hibiki wrinkled his nose. If they really had switched somehow, Yamato was in Abel's body, which would make his response true in a technical sense. "Okay, but are-"  
  
    A familiar ringtone cut him off, and Hibiki almost swore in frustration. He let it ring a few times as he eyed Abel. He better not think Hibiki was going to let this distract him. He was seriously tempted to just not accept the call at all, but given that only his friends could actually reach him, ignoring it wasn't a real option.  
  
    He huffed loudly and opened up his phone. "Hello?"  
  
    "Hey, man, it's me. We got Shiva!"  
  
    "Hey, Daichi. Good job!" With his cell phone held to his ear, Hibiki continued to meet Abel's eyes.  
  
    "Thanks! I can't believe we did it! Where should we meet up?"  
  
    They hashed out a time and place, and Hibiki hung up. Abel seemed to have no issue watching him, his temple resting against one of his fists, his elbow was propped on the top of the bench.  
  
    "Where are we headed?"  
  
    Hibiki retorted quickly. "Nowhere until you answer my question."  
  
    Abel dismissed him easily and pulled his arm away. "Aren't you running short on time? You need to meet up with your friends to deal with Alioth as quickly as possible."  
  
    "Wh- Hey!"  
  
    But Abel was already on the move. He reached out for him, his fingers sliding around Hibiki's bony wrists. A protest was halfway on his lips as they vanished into thin air.  
  
    This fucker.  
  
    They really were cut from the same cloth.


	6. Chapter 6

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter was beta read by Shigarakisans.

* * *

 

 

    "Gaaaaaahhh!!"  
  
    Yamato sighed inwardly and cast an aggravated eye over Shijima as he flung himself away from the pair of them. "Must you?" he muttered, letting go of Hibiki's wrist and reaching up to touch his ear. His bare fingers brushed the plastic of Abel's enormous headphones instead, so he dropped his arm. Part of him wanted to be annoyed about it, given how bulky and unwieldy they were, but considering how often he forgot they were there, it seemed pointless to complain about them.  
  
    Beside him, Hibiki straightened up and smoothed down the front of his rumpled jacket. "Yeah, he does that a lot," he said. "Sorry." Yamato wasn't quite sure if he was speaking to him or to Shijima, but he decided not to request clarification.  
  
    "What the hell, man!?" Shijima leaned heavily on Nitta's arm and made a melodramatic show of grasping at his shirt. What Hibiki saw in him, Yamato would _never_ know. "I thought we were going to meet up at the Diet Building!"  
  
    Yamato noticed Hibiki peering at him from the corner of his eye. He tilted his head to meet those bright blue eyes and tossed him an unapologetic smile.  
  
    "Someone didn't want to wait," Hibiki explained, focusing his attention on Shijima instead. "Anyway, here we are." They stood in a loose formation, everyone present save Abel -- or Yamato, as far as they knew. If they truly intended to make this trip to Fukuoka, now would be the time for it.  
  
    Right on cue, Ban approached Hibiki and jerked her head towards Makoto. "Shouldn't we ask about...y'know?"  
  
    They really did think they were being so clandestine. If he regarded them better, Yamato might be tempted to just tell them outright not to bother. But he didn't, so he wasn't. Hibiki, however, offered her a short nod. "Yeah, we probably should. We don't know when Yamato will call. Better to do this as soon as possible so we're ready to confront Alioth when he does."  
  
    She and Kujou both stood before him without uttering a word, leaving Hibiki to bathe in the awkward silence. "Uhm, right." How typical. It was a wonder this entire group didn't expect Hibiki to direct them to breathe, too. Yamato tucked his arms against himself and watched with an unimpressed scowl as Hibiki made his way through the group to address Sako.  
  
    "Hey, Makoto?"  
  
    "Yes?"  
  
    Whatever the outcome, it would be interesting to see this play out. Yamato sat back mid-air and draped one leg over his knee to settle in.  
  
    Hibiki took a breath and offered her a disarming smile. "We were wondering if we might make a trip to Fukuoka."  
  
    "Fukuoka?" She reacted about as Yamato had when Hibiki had asked him the same thing. "...Why do you want to go to Fukuoka?" Almost verbatim.  
  
    As per her brash nature, Kujou interjected then. "We've all seen the photo! We want to know what that black scar is!"  
  
    Yamato could admit to being perplexed as to why they wanted to see it in person. They were not in any position to do anything with that information, as Hibiki himself had already pointed out. He suspected that when they arrived, the only thing that would come of their wasted effort would be a lot of ignorant panic and Shijima having some emotional outburst. If they were so dedicated to expending the energy anyway, he was hardly interested in stopping them, but the endeavor still struck him as ridiculous and unproductive.  
  
    Not that they'd thought it through at all. Yamato was unsurprised to see Nitta join the fray to state her case. Apparently she'd discovered a spine some time in the past couple of days.  
  
    "W- We'd like to know what it is," she said earnestly, even as her voice wavered. "We know the terminal has been re-activated."  
  
    "Yeah," Kujou threw in, evidently determined to offer Nitta whatever abrasive support she could muster. "All we need is the code."  
  
    Sako's brows pinched, but the rest of her face remained somewhat neutral. "...Fumi. I see. Unfortunately, I'm not authorized to give you the code."  
  
    Yamato rather admired her dedication. He was already well aware of it, but even so, actually being in a position to see it firsthand was novel. A sudden, bizarre impulse seized him, and he found himself speaking up quite without meaning to. "Why is that?" he asked her. Apparently his input surprised the others as much as it surprised him. Their gazes all snapped towards him at once.  
  
    Sako blinked, then recovered and frowned sharply. "Because it's extremely dangerous. Any of you could easily be hurt."  
  
    "But what is it?" Ban balled her fists beside her and drew herself up to her full, meager height. "We deserve to know what's going on! It's messed up to keep us in the dark like this."  
  
    He watched Sako's shoulders square. "I don't disagree. Be that as it may, I still cannot give you the code."  
  
    "Perhaps not," Yamato said, once again arresting the attention of the group. What on earth was he thinking? He hadn't intended to say anything at all, yet there he was running his mouth a second time. Ugh, Abel was starting to affect him. It was not a thrilling epiphany to have, by any means. "But I'm under no such restrictions. Are you really so committed to going there?"  
  
    He spoke exclusively to Hibiki, eyeing him with a near insatiable sense of curiosity. Hibiki met his gaze without flinching and nodded. "Yes."  
  
    "Very well."  
  
    Yamato lifted a hand to snap his fingers, and his overwhelming magic surged up to envelop them. Tokyo spun away from them as they were dumped unceremoniously into Fukuoka -- quite literally speaking. Most of them landed so hard they collapsed into a heap of bodies. Only Hibiki was spared by his magic, which was interesting because it wasn't intentional for once. He flailed in the air a bit until Yamato set him down a little more carefully.  
  
    "Sorry," he said blithely. "That one is new."  
  
    He wasn't sorry, but the others didn't need to know that.  
  
    They scrambled back to their feet while Yamato peered over their heads to get an eyeful of the void. It had eroded more of the city by now, naturally, but for the most part, it did indeed resemble the photo. A tilted building was half devoured, and the road they stood upon disappeared into the scar's black maw. To his complete lack of shock, exclamations of horror swept through the small crowd they made.  
  
    "Wh- what is it?" Ban choked out. "Th- the city's almost gone!"  
  
    Shijima panicked exactly as much as Yamato thought he would. "What the hell is that black stuff!?" He was tempted to roll his eyes, but that was so close to being Abel's childish trademark he refused to humor the urge. Still, though, what the hell else could they have possibly expected? If they had truly seen the photo as they so adamantly claimed, then they should have known exactly what they were looking at. Honestly.  
  
    They crowded around Sako in their fear, and Yamato left them to it in disgust. What a bunch of infants. He sailed up into the air to approach the scar and get a better look at it for himself, though he was already well aware of what it was. As he did so, he half-listened to Sako's explanation for the simpering children suffocating her.  
  
    "This is what happens to a city without a barrier." She was patient with them, of which they were clearly undeserving. "This entire area will be gone in a few days."  
  
    "Gone?!"  
  
    Yamato spotted Hibiki watching him nervously -- though whether it was Yamato he was looking at, or the scar, was admittedly unclear. Regardless, he soon turned back towards Sako and indicated the unfathomable darkness that stood like a wall before them. "What's past it?" he asked her. "Or...is anything past it?"  
  
    Sako shook her dark head. "No. You're correct. The answer seems to be nothing at all."  
  
    "What does that mean?!" Shijima again, his voice cresting higher as fear choked him. That emotional outburst he'd predicted appeared to be incoming, in 3, 2, 1... "C'mon, make sense! Please!" Yamato shook his head, but Hibiki was determined to make up for his total lack of sympathy. He watched with his nose wrinkled as the boy bit down on his bottom lip and squeezed at Shijima's shoulder.  
  
    "Hey, come on, don't freak out." Hibiki kept his hand steady against Shijima and jerked his head towards the void once more. "So I take it you guys already tested that?"  
  
    Sako nodded this time. "Yes, of course. We can't find any trace of existence beyond it. We've tried multiple things, but nothing can broach it. Light, sound...physical matter, radio waves, even demons. The scar takes everything."  
  
    She was technically correct. All those things did indeed disappear when fed to the scar, so to speak. But they described the 'void' as if it were an object, something that could 'take' things, as Sako said. In fact, it was the opposite: nothing at all. The scar didn't take anything; it was the remains of what was once there. The world wasn't being _taken_ to be put some place else.  
  
    It was being erased.  
  
    Not that any of these cretins could be expected to understand the distinction.  
  
    Yamato tilted his head backwards and eyed them almost lazily. "Would you like to see how it works?" he called down. He dropped then, his arms lifting into the air as his toes touched back down to earth. There was enough debris scattered around for him to offer them a more direct demonstration of the void's repercussions, so he may as well. He located a long, narrow brick that he hefted up into his hand, and he slid it inside of the void while the rest looked on.  
  
    "A- Abel," Hibiki blurted, his voice laden with shock. "Be careful!"  
  
    His demand was issued slightly too late, unfortunately. Yamato had put his hand in a millimeter too far. Enormous pressure bit at his fingertips, and he jerked arm hand back with his heart lurching inside him. The brick was neatly severed where the void had erased it up to the point Yamato held it.  
  
    With his heart still racing inside him, Yamato dropped the brick into his other hand and examined his fingertips. He had expected them to simply be gone at the tip, dripping blood and exposing a smooth edge of bone and flesh. But they were perfectly in tact.  
  
    He _knew_ he touched it.  
  
    Shijima was shrieking something about the brick, but Yamato barely heard him. He swung around to face the void again, his face tightening like its existence offended him. With a jerk, he shoved his forearm inside of it.  
  
    He felt nothing save the pressure, but he could move each of his fingers. They were still attached and functioning quite well. Carefully, he drew his arm back out to examine it. Not a single shred of damage.  
  
    For one of the precious few times in his life, Yamato's head felt completely empty. He knew exactly what was happening, he just wasn't sure what to make of it.  
  
    Except that he was _extremely_ fascinated.  
  
    He spun around in a semi-circle to face Hibiki, whose arms were stretched out for him, his pale face contorted in upset. But Yamato couldn't contain himself. He smiled for the boy and fell backwards, letting the void consume him.  
  
    It bore down on him with such intense pressure that he could imagine this was what it felt like to touch the bottom of the Marianas Trench. And what it looked like, too. He could see and hear nothing, which was to be expected from nothingness. Yamato tilted his head to look at where the world should be, but he couldn't see where he'd left Hibiki on the other side of existence. No light. No sound. Not even a temperature. Only the purest form of nothingness there could ever possibly be.  
  
    He should be dead. He should be erased, the very atoms of his body destroyed, his information wiped from the planet forever.  
  
    But there he was.  
  
    He could feel the force against him grow like it could erase him by sheer brute force. It pressed against every inch of him as it tried to snuff him out, but either his magic was too immense, or his data was too...foreign.  
  
    Yamato was jarred from his thoughts as he felt a sharp tug around his throat. A second yank came, and he popped out of the void and burst to life, nearly kicking Hibiki as he collapsed onto the asphalt. Disoriented, he shook his head and opened his eyes to see Hibiki's bone white, sweat-pearled face. He looked absolutely terrified, but Yamato was afforded only a moment to try and parse it before Hibiki threw his skinny arms around his neck.  
  
    "What the fuck is wrong with you?!" he yelled at him, but it was rather muffled by the side of Yamato's neck. "Don't _ever_ do that to me again."  
  
    He was not accustomed to being yelled at, but it didn't bother him nearly so much as the fact that he was being embraced by a person. Yamato hesitated and slowly dropped one of his hands to the small of Hibiki's back. "I didn't mean to worry you," he murmured to him. He could feel Hibiki's heart slamming against him with a vengeance, which was both interesting and a little unnerving. He hadn't realized his little experiment would distress him so much.  
  
    Hibiki let go finally, sitting back and staring at him with his face still twisted in fear and anxiety. "You almost gave me a stroke, Abel. I- I can't believe you're still here."  
  
    "Neither can I," Yamato agreed. He stood and helped Hibiki back to his feet with both hands looped around his elbows.  
  
    By now the rest of them had rushed over. Sako was as pale as Hibiki was, but she was much more composed. "How are you still alive?" she asked slowly, her voice measured but mistrusting.  
  
    Her question brought a deeply self-satisfied smile to his face. Yamato dropped his gaze, let go of Hibiki, and opened up his palms. He was still alive because even Polaris could not kill him. The Administrator could see all, knew all, could destroy all.  
  
    Except for him.  
  
    His mind was completely awash in possibilities. His heart beat faster as he considered what he could do with this knowledge and this unbelievable power that coursed from his limbs like water. He was now such a foreign entity that it was amazing he could exist in this world at all. Yamato may not be stronger than Polaris...but he may not need to be.  
  
    "I'm not sure," he responded, but he soon ignored her in favor of smiling at Hibiki. It was technically true, after all. Briefly, Hibiki looked confused, but he offered him a hesitant, slightly seasick smile in return nevertheless. "I sincerely apologize for upsetting you. Are you ready to head back now?"  
  
    "B- wait!" Ban snapped. She flung her hands towards the scar. "But what about this? What about Fukuoka? You said this is what happens to cities without a barrier."  
  
    Behind her, Kujou wound her arms around herself and frowned. "Yeah, there are only four barriers left, right, Makoto?"  
  
    The woman shifted slightly. "Yes, that's correct."  
  
    They all seemed to come to the conclusion at roughly the same time. Ban inched closer to Kujou. "Does...that mean all the other cities are gone?"  
  
    Sako sighed then. "We're not certain. We've been unable to reach any of the other cities as of yet."  
  
    Hibiki shifted against Yamato's side and swallowed. "I think we should do like Abel suggested and go back. It's dangerous here. I feel like it would be better if we...thought about the implications of that after we take care of Alioth. If we can't get rid of it, we may not have the need to worry at all, you know what I mean?"  
  
    Ever the thoughtful one. Yamato admired him silently, still watching him while the others shuffled around uselessly. Hibiki had been so afraid seeing him tumble into the void, but there was no reason for that.  
  
    He ought to be glad.  
  
    Yamato's carefully laid plans were changing very rapidly, but in his opinion, so much the better. For him and for Hibiki both.  
  
    He was, after all, an adaptable sort, and if his assessment of Hibiki was accurate, so was he.  
  
    And when Yamato had his way, everyone else would be too.


	7. Chapter 7

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter was beta read by Shigarakisans.
> 
>  **update** : I've posted a new note on the first chapter! If you're interested in some of the thing Abel references in this chapter, you might check out my fic [Night Daze](https://archiveofourown.org/works/4676351/chapters/10673555). Abel's history with Hibiki is detailed there.

* * *

 

 

    Kama proved to be so pathetic Abel almost felt sorry for him, but the reminder that he was into underage bellybuttons was enough to quash the temptation each time he felt it rise. He curled his lip at the creature and tried to fold his arms with as much visible disapproval as he could manage. Hesitation seized him after a bit, though. He may not have felt any sympathy for Kama, but that didn't mean the god's dope ass parrot deserved to share his fate. That parrot never did anything to anybody, and also it was very pretty.  
  
    "Y- You said you'd protect me!"  
  
    Abel's eyes snapped back up to Kama's face and narrowed. "Normally this kind of thing wouldn't cross my mind, but circumstances being what they are, I do feel like you should accept your share of responsibility for actually believing me. Have you looked at me?" He jerked his arms apart to slide his hands along the length of his torso, his face twisting. "The only possible way I could look more like a supervillain would be for a giant, emo angel wing to spontaneously sprout from between my shoulder blades. I hate to say it, but at this point, this is kind of on you."  
  
    He fell silent again and craned his neck to stare up at Alioth. For all he talked big, if he couldn't figure out how to actually get Kama up there, they were kind of fucked. Abel hummed to himself and dropped his head again as he flexed his fingers.  
  
    Yamato's body was definitely more human than Abel was used to after this long, but to the asshole's credit, he _was_ much more powerful than his peers. Abel could feel some kind of magic surrounding him, but it was very much unlike his own. While Abel's was deeply internal, whatever magic Yamato had existed externally, like a separate entity of sorts. Most probably it was. The 'texture' of it reminded him of the magic he felt coming from the tower in Tokyo.  
  
    Curious, Abel lifted his arm and tried to seek it out, but nothing seemed to change. No great wealth of power rushed to meet him, no mystical stir of the air, no...anything. He scrunched his face and wiggled his fingers like he could reach out and touch it, but again, nothing happened.  
  
    "Ugh. Bear with me," he said, and he touched the tips of his fingers together. From the corner of his eye, he could see Kama flailing around atop his awesome parrot.  
  
    "No! I- I don't want to bear with you!"  
  
    Abel rolled his eyes and went back to focusing on his hands. "You can try to escape if you want, but it might be hazardous to your health. Think of it this way: Shiva can incinerate you quickly, or I can torture you slowly. It's up to you."  
  
    He went straight back to ignoring Kama. The magic did seem to like his current stance a little more. If it really was a separate entity, then perhaps he ought to treat it like one. In particular, one that appreciated being deferred to. He pressed his palms together as if to pray and lifted his eyes. He could sense it buzzing in the air. It was kind of odd to feel the magic pressing against him rather than rolling out of him like an inner fog, but it was admittedly very interesting.  
  
    But then it went still again, and Abel frowned. The magic was beginning to remind him of a cat. It existed, and it was present, almost like it wanted him to be aware of it. But it was obviously not interested in doing anything more taxing than that unless he was going to give it a reason to do so. Abel made a noise again and concentrated. "I need you to lift this guy," he said out loud, tilting his head back. "Uhm, the parrot can stay if you want."  
  
    All at once, an eruption of gold light burst from beneath his feet. Abel blinked and tucked his chin against his chest to examine it. "Oh, shit! That's fucking sweet." Much flashier than his magic, for sure. He was into it.  
  
    With his hands still steepled together, Abel raised his arms and was delighted to see Kama lift into the air. Less delighted to see the parrot rise with him, but...in that instance, beggars could not be choosers. If this weird, touchy magic wanted the parrot too, Abel had little choice but to let it have it.  
  
    He jerked his arms straight up over his head, and Kama went soaring into the sky with a Daichi-esque shriek. "Damn, look at him go!"  
  
    His arms fell, and he propped his hands onto his hips and tilted back to watch Kama's ascent. Eventually, though, Abel lost sight of him entirely. Hopefully his aim was right, because he certainly wasn't going to be able to correct it now.  
  
    "I'm actually impressed."  
  
    "You should be," Abel responded without even bothering to look back. "I'm _very_ impressive."  
  
    "And so modest, too."  
  
    Abel swung around and tried to look down his nose at Yamato, but since Yamato was hovering just a few inches over him, his efforts were somewhat undercut. He sniffed and slid his hands into his jacket pockets. "What do you want?"   
  
    Yamato lifted two of his fingertips to indicate the general direction Kama had blasted off towards. "I was going to help you place our target, but it seems I needn't have bothered. I confess, I did not expect you to be able to harness the Dragon Stream."  
  
    "That what that is?" Abel unearthed his hands again to eye them. "Why not? Magic is magic, right?"  
  
    "Quite."  
  
    Abel actually found himself a bit taken aback by Yamato's tone. It sounded almost...amused, which was absurd. If he was, that would mark the first time he'd ever been anything other than annoyed by something Abel had to say.  
  
    He opened his mouth to grill Yamato about it, but he found himself violently interrupted. A sharp, alien whine cut through the air as Pasupata slammed into Alioth, and the words promptly dried up on his tongue. Alioth splintered pitifully before it came tumbling down to earth with veils of smoke spiraling up from each of its shattered remains.  
  
    "Oh, wow," Abel said.  
  
    "Indeed."  
  
    They watched the fragments fall for half a minute before Abel turned towards Yamato. "So, we should probably go."  
  
    As cool as it was to watch an enormous alien literally explode to death and go careening down to earth, they were kind of standing directly beneath it. In fact, a giant shadow loomed over them both. Yamato eyed it. "Do you think so?" he asked. Fucking smartass. Fortunately, he agreed, despite his shitty tone, and he snapped his pale fingers together. They winked safely out of crushing distance and crash-landed right into Yamato's office.  
  
    Abel was still trying to get his bearings when Yamato whipped out his phone and yanked his headphones down around his neck. "I don't know how, or why, you tolerate these."  
  
    "Excuse me?" Fuck him. Abel's headphones were the coolest model on the entire god damned planet. An offended sneer pulled across his face as he flopped down onto Yamato's fancy office chair. "I already suspected that your taste was shit, but thanks for offering the confirmation anyway, I guess. To answer your stupid question, my headphones are fucking sick, and only assholes listen to music without headphones, respectively."  
  
    Yamato was totally ignoring him in favor of the stupid looking phone pressed to his ear. "Hibiki, it's me." It was his own voice coming out of Abel's lips again. He had no idea why it bothered him so much, but it was viscerally unpleasant. Not so unpleasant that Abel couldn't eavesdrop, though. He folded his arms atop Yamato's desk and leaned forward to watch the man speak with grudging interest.  
  
    Hibiki's muffled voice could be heard, but it wasn't loud enough to pick out anything he said. He could guess, though. "Yes, it was a direct hit. You did an excellent job," Yamato praised. Jesus, he was so transparent. All they did was summon Shiva and then stand there to watch, but to hear Yamato tell it, one might think Hibiki single-handedly shot down Alioth himself and then flexed before an adoring crowd.  
  
    There was a pause as Hibiki spoke again.  
  
    "Don't be so hasty," Yamato chided. "It's true that Alioth's core is now vulnerable to attack, but the fall broke its shell. Sapporo will be a biohazard zone until the toxins it released have dispersed. When the air is safe to breathe, I'll contact you."  
  
    They disconnected, but Yamato was barely spared a moment to collect his bearings. Abel leaned forward harder and regarded him with a disdainful eyebrow. "You're seriously content to just wait around on it? Why? I thought you guys were on a pretty strict deadline."  
  
    Yamato threw him a look that suggested he was soon going to find his own voice to be an absolutely intolerable hair-trigger. It made Abel smile. "Are you so eager to send them to death?" he asked, meeting Abel's eyes in a pretty direct challenge.  
  
    "Yeah, sure, _they_ might all choke and die, but you're me." Abel rotated his hand around in something like boredom and scoffed. "Not that I'm shocked by your lack of imagination. You have control of my unbelievable magic. I can't exactly say with a hundred percent certainty, but I'm pretty comfortable making the assumption that you could pop over there and blow it all away with minimal effort."  
  
    "Just like that?"  
  
    Abel tossed him a weird look and cocked his head. "Yeah, just like that."  
  
    "You're not at all concerned with the potential ramifications if your comfortable assumption is wrong." It wasn't a question. Abel smiled again and pointed at him with his thumb thrust in the air. He winked in the face of Yamato's scowl.  
  
    "You got it. If I actually had my body back, I'd already be there."  
  
    Yamato shook his head slowly. "Impulsive to the point of idiocy, I see. Very well. I'm willing to test your hypothesis. Let's see if your confidence has any reasonable basis."  
  
    "What?" Abel glared at him. "Uh, yeah, duh, of course it does. I'm the King of-"  
  
    Yamato vanished promptly.  
  
    Silence swept into the office like it was trying to fill the void left by Abel's writhing magic. He sat there blinking like an idiot for a full two minutes. If something tragic really did happen, he was going to feel like a huge tool, and also like a murderer. He didn't _like_ Yamato, but he didn't want him to die. Plus Hibiki would never, ever speak to him again.  
  
    Fortunately for his nerves, Yamato appeared right back in his office, grabbed Abel by the arms, and disappeared once again. He dropped Abel straight onto his ass, where he sprawled across broken asphalt and coughed. "What the actual fuck, man?"  
  
    "Still breathing, I see."  
  
    Abel hissed at him and struggled to his feet. "I fucking hate you. I hope your ass hurts like a bitch when we switch back."  
  
    A smooth chuckle slid from Yamato's throat, just to make it crystal clear that he didn't care enough about Abel's opinion of him to be insulted by it. "How do you feel?"  
  
    "What, you mean aside from the throbbing pain in my ass?" Abel snarled. Then he paused and glared at him. "Wait, are you using me as a guinea pig?" He swiveled to see Alioth's core several feet away. Both his eyebrows rocketed up. "I can't believe you're willing to use your own body like that." He took in a deep breath and then stood there with it held in his chest for several seconds. Then he exhaled and turned back to Yamato. "Yeah, the air's fine. I've got to hand it to you, that's raw as fuck. I take back the 'fucking', I just regular hate you."  
  
    Of course, Yamato didn't bother responding, because he was already on the phone. He hovered there patiently until Hibiki finally answered. "It's me." Damn, they were close enough Yamato didn't even feel the need to properly announce himself? Abel squinted at him, but he remained silent as Yamato smiled to himself and peered at the ground beneath them. "I have an update on our situation. It would seem the toxins dispersed much more quickly than we initially estimated. You're welcome to confront Alioth whenever you're ready."  
  
    God, he was so hard up for Hibiki, and he didn't even have the slightest clue. Abel waited until Yamato's gaze met his own briefly, whereupon he rolled his eyes as hard as humanly possible.  
  
    When they finally hung up, Abel scoffed at him. "You're about as opaque as cellophane."  
  
    "Pardon?"  
  
    Yamato actually did seem like he wanted an explanation before he thought better of it, and he glared at Abel and reached for him. Immediately, Abel twisted his arm to knock it away. "Oh hell no, you're not teleporting me back to JP's to do more stupid errands for you. I am so fucking tired of being your lap dog. I'm bored. I want to stay here and watch them kill that thing."  
  
    For awhile, Yamato offered him no response except to glower at him. "Did I mishear you? Are you really complaining that you are _bored_?"  
  
    "Yes, bored." Abel reached up to cup his mouth and yelled directly in front of Yamato's face. "B-O-R-E-D. Being you is boring, okay? Do you not ever get sick of dipping your hands into pots and manipulating everything behind the scenes like you think you're Hikaru Nakamura? I don't know how you can stand it. You _could_ intervene and do some actual, physical good, you just refuse to do it."  
  
    Yamato's face hardened in a split second. "I cannot fathom how someone like you came into the enormous magic you command. It baffles me that this power is content to be wielded by an overgrown toddler."  
  
    "Toddler? Really? You already used that one," Abel pointed out with an unimpressed toss of his hair. "Come on, hit me with something better than that."  
  
    "What?" The iciness in his face was chased away by abject confusion and a hint of annoyance. Abel snorted at him and dug his hands into his back pockets.  
  
    "You really are such a fucking geek. Here, I'll help." He popped his hands back out and flexed his fingers before he held out his right index and jammed his other on top of it. "For starters, I wear a vampire cape, I can't distinguish between red and hot pink, I unironically like the Spice Girls, there are some pretty brazenly homoerotic overtones to the relationship I have with my brother slash cousin..." Abel paused and flattened both hands in front of him. "There's plenty of material to work with, is what I'm saying. That you continuously go for the low-hanging fruit is as disappointing as it is unsurprising."  
  
    Yamato was quiet again. He stared at Abel with his cape shifting and unfurling like a lazy feline, his face impassive and his arms in a tight fold across his ribs. Finally, he dropped his head. "I'll keep that in mind should I ever decide I care enough to think about you that to that extent."  
  
    Abel laughed in spite of himself. "Touché!"  
  
    Abruptly, he spun away from Yamato and walked away from him to find a better vantage point so they could spy on Hibiki. It wasn't a particularly cool thing to do, but he'd already done it once before, and he really was so fucking tired of hanging out behind the scenes to do Yamato's sketchy bidding.  
  
    "Where do you think you're going?" Yamato called. Abel responded with a flippant shrug.  
  
    "Scouting, obviously. I want a good spot to rubberneck. Besides, I'm sure you'd love to see your boytoy in action."  
  
    "My what?"  
  
    "Ugh." Abel didn't deign to respond to that one, instead climbing up onto a ruined building that was partially tilted over where Alioth's broken body rested. Or part of it, anyway. Its 'body' was now plural. He slipped inside and crested its crooked but still stable stairs to find a balcony from which they could watch safely -- or at least, from which _he_ could watch safely. Yamato was now safe just by default. He was welcome.  
  
    He nearly fell over the rail when Yamato materialized beside him. "Fucking A, that is so irritating! Okay, I get it now. I understand." He sagged forward against the metal with his arms dangling over it and indulged in a melodramatic sigh. "This is karma. Have I been suitably punished yet? Can I have my body back now?"  
  
    "Do stop whining," Yamato muttered. "It isn't very becoming."  
  
    "Oh, please." Abel propped his elbow on the rail and nestled his chin against his palm, but then he thought better of it and straightened out his arms. "You and I both know I don't give a shit how 'becoming' you or anyone else thinks I am." Abel paused and admired his hands. "You know, I actually really like these gloves. I feel like they make my air quotes _way_ more condescending."  
  
    A long, put upon sigh drained from Yamato. Waiting for the arrival of Hibiki and his team was going to be utterly agonizing for them both.  
  
    Abel drummed the tips of his gloved fingers against the rail. "Give me my headphones."  
  
    He didn't expect to be challenged on that, but to his unending impatience, Yamato actually glared at him. "No," he said.  
  
    "What the f- Why?!" Abel demanded.  
  
    "You're not putting-" Yamato's words cut off so sharply it was like his teeth straight up guillotined them. "Nevermind." He sensed the missed opportunity to get some ammo on Hotsuin, but the man refused to cough it up. Instead he grasped at the edge of Abel's cape in consideration. "Here." He plunged one hand into it and dug around. With a pop, he produced a pair of earbuds that he thrust into Abel's hand. "There you are. Now put them in and be silent."  
  
    "Oh my god." Abel crowed in smug amusement as he took the earbuds. "These are black and yellow. You fucking _accessorize_. Holy shit." To Yamato's increasing aggravation, Abel could not stop laughing. "I want to make fun of you so bad, but I- I have to say, I admire your commitment to a theme."  
  
    "I'm not sure which half of 'be silent' is so thoroughly evading you," Yamato bit out. "Is it the 'be' half, or the 'silent' half? The latter, I suspect."  
  
    Abel was still chuckling to himself as he put the buds in and plugged them into his phone. "I'll give you that one. Thanks for your super cool headphones. It does me so well to know they match the rest of my outfit."  
  
    He plopped down onto the balcony and settled in with his phone to wait for Hibiki while Yamato worked hard at ignoring him. All things considered, it could have gone worse.  
  
    Yamato could have tossed him over the edge. He couldn't say he wouldn't have deserved it.


	8. Chapter 8

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter was beta read by Shigarakisans. ♥

* * *

 

 

    He desperately wished Hibiki would hurry up and arrive. Yamato was sure that if he and his friends didn't make it soon, there was going to be little recourse available to him other than to grab his own body by the neck and break it.  
  
    Never in all his life had Yamato ever met anyone who so successfully irritated the life out of him. Granted, it seemed likely that was due to the fact that he'd never been forced to tolerate anyone who did so until now. Most people were terrified of him; Abel was quite pointedly _not_. That may or may not have made up a significant portion of why the bizarre demon lord aggravated him so, but that was not worth considering too deeply, in his opinion.  
  
    He made a concentrated effort to focus on Alioth so as to distract himself from the cretin currently piloting Yamato's body, but he couldn't manage it for more than a few seconds at a time. Even after he'd been given headphones explicitly to shut him up, Abel still refused to be anything other than an intolerable nuisance.  
  
    All things considered, Yamato was unable to pinpoint what it was about Abel that bothered him so effectively. Shijima agitated the hell out of him too, but not to this extent. Had Shijima been the one to switch places with him, Yamato had no doubt he'd still feel seething contempt for him. But he was sure he wouldn't be consumed with the urge to actually strangle him every few minutes.  
  
    Annoyed, Yamato glanced back over to eye him. Abel had plopped down right on the balcony, Yamato's jacket spread around him and collecting dust. He'd even thrust his legs out between the rails and was kicking them like an idle four year old. Ugh.  
  
    Yamato had assured him that he didn't care at all what Abel did with his body; that he held such little consideration for anyone else's opinion of him, Abel would be incapable of doing anything to embarrass him. But the longer they remained like this, the more sharply aware Yamato was becoming that that wasn't entirely true. Watching Abel walk around in his skin made him positively squirm at times.  
  
    Why? It was true that he didn't give a damn what any civilian -- or his own agents, for that matter -- thought of him. Abel just bothered _him_ , personally. Which was foolish. He had better things with which to concern himself.  
  
    And yet...  
  
    Yamato found his gaze drifting away from Alioth yet again and settling on Abel's turned back. Or Yamato's, rather. Eugh. If something that trivial was this efficient at getting under his skin, it would probably behoove him to understand why. He didn't like the idea that he had a weakness so ripe for exploitation. Since Alioth was not going anywhere and Hibiki had yet to arrive, Yamato decided (grudgingly) to at least think about it. His eyes landed between Abel's shoulder blades and narrowed into slits.  
  
    No matter what he was doing or where he was, Abel came off as incredibly casual. His shoulders were always hunched, his arms loose, his spine bent lazily. If Abel ruined his posture, he was going to be livid. He hadn't dealt with years of tutors badgering him to sit up straight so some uncouth oaf could blunder into his body and invalidate all his effort. But even that, as legitimate a complaint it was, wasn't truly the crux of the issue.  
  
    Perhaps his attitude was why. Abel treated nothing with any sort of gravitas whatsoever. Nothing mattered. Nothing was worthy of being taken seriously. He slouched like a surly teenager, he sauntered around and made inane jokes. The world was literally being devoured, and Abel did not care one single iota until it offered him the opportunity for a punchline.  
  
    Truth be told, Yamato actually did understand that. Abel had no reason to care when, as he'd mentioned, this was not 'his' universe. None of them, save perhaps Hibiki, were real enough to him to matter, and he only seemed to look after Hibiki because the boy reminded Abel of himself. But that wasn't something that should bother him either. Yamato didn't give a damn if Abel cared about them or not. He barely cared about them himself.  
  
    So, what, then? What about this idiot _deserved_ to needle at Yamato like this?  
  
    "What is 'Babymetal'?" Abel muttered. His sudden question yanked Yamato from his musings, and he glared at the back of his head.  
  
    "Pardon?"  
  
    Abel did not respond, likely because a blast of loud music erupted from his headphones. Another spike of irritation surged through him. Was that really necessary? It wasn't enough for Abel to mar his posture, now he had to threaten to make him deaf, too?  
  
    After a few minutes, Abel plucked his headphones from his ears and laughed with delight. "Oh my god! Babymetal is amazing. I've only heard one song so far, but I'm pretty sure I'd die for them."  
  
    "What _are_ you doing?"  
  
    Abel rolled his head back and blinked. "Catching up? I've kinda missed out on a lot, so I figured I'd take the time to climb out from the rock I've been chilling under. Now that you're not keeping me tied up with your stupid errands, anyway."  
  
    Yamato ignored the insult in favor of the rest of his statement, because, in spite of who it came from, that information was very interesting. "Are you telling me that you have internet access?"  
  
    A pause. Abel hummed in thought. "Yeah, actually."  
  
    " _How_ ," Yamato demanded. He was rewarded with another insufferable roll of his own eyes.  
  
    "I'm really surprised you're willing to ask me like you actually think I would know. You think I'm a dumbass, so I'm not sure why you're wasting your breath."  
  
    Impatience lashed through his insides. "Do you know or not?"  
  
    Abel shrugged. "Not really. To be honest, I went to a different universe to get wi-fi when I realized you guys didn't have it. I'm not sure why it still works. Pretty sure all your servers here are being digested by whatever black thing is chomping away at everything, so...that's kind of interesting, but not exactly in my wheelhouse. I'm sure you're shocked to hear that. Let me know if you need me to fetch you a fainting couch and some smelling salts."  
  
    Unbelievable. Yamato felt the rage threatening to choke him. He wasn't the least bit curious to know? There were only four cities left. Abel was correct that the vast majority of servers had long since been erased, and the electricity to power the rest was being funneled to JP's. Frankly, their servers had more important things to host than garbage like whatever 'Babymetal' was. If Abel truly did have access to standard websites, that would seem to imply that his magic somehow directed a wi-fi signal to his phone. Had some of it attached to his phone while the rest lingered in whichever universe he'd arbitrarily chosen to take it from?  
  
    How could this dumb fucking troglodyte have possibly earned the kind of magic that could stretch across multiple universes?  
  
    Once more, Yamato was distracted from his building anger by a shift in said magic. He could feel some strange tug in his chest, an instinctual awareness of something powerful getting closer to him. That had yet to happen, so Yamato humored it, curious as to what could possibly be making his magic sit up to take notice like that.  
  
    He leaned forward, his body hovering over the balcony rail until he spotted a Pixie flitting through the air. Surely that could not be it. He frowned in dismay and reached for his cell phone to point it at her. "What?!" he blurted. Her level was maxed, and she actually had Megidoladaon. Why in the name of all things holy had someone bothered to fuse a Pixie with Megidoladaon and then go to the effort to train her up?  
  
    Beside him, Abel lifted his head and stared at him. "What? Do you see something?" His gloved fingers curled along the metal as he yanked himself up to stand. Then he beamed. "Oh, hey!" He jammed two fingers into his mouth before his face screwed up. "Agh, ick." With distaste twisting his features, Abel stripped off the glove on his right hand and made a second attempt. A piercing whistle split the air.  
  
    It certainly caught the Pixie's attention. She zoomed over to them as Abel lounged against the rail with a roguish smirk. "Hey, babe," he crooned to her.  
  
    "What did you just call me?!"  
  
    Abel scoffed at her and tried to flick her in the nose, but she was so small it ended up being her entire face. "Chill the fuck down, it's me."  
  
    Of course. Of _course_ the person who would bother to fuse a Pixie with Megidolaon was Abel. Yamato allowed himself an internal groan and folded his arms. Apparently this was the Pixie they'd spoken to that horrid day. He ought to have recognized her, but in his defense, Pixies did all look the same. Besides, he hadn't exactly thought to pull out his phone and analyze her abilities when he'd been freshly ripped from his own body and was trying to get a handle on floating.  
  
    He watched silently as she folded her tiny arms and frowned at Abel. "Oh," she said. "Still?" Yamato snorted.  
  
    Abel glared at her. "It's been less than twenty-four hours. Get off my nuts." He huffed at her and pulled back to lean against the wall. Pixie fluttered after him and sat down on his shoulder.  
  
    "You shouldn't need that long," she told him. "You're just not trying very hard." Yamato almost snorted again, but he managed to abstain. Not trying very hard indeed. Even after being told that regaining his body depended upon it, Abel made literally no effort to try and pass himself off as Yamato. He'd snottily told him he was just being 'abrasive' like Yamato was, but he was far more aggressive and insulting. And Yamato was hardly a choir boy, but he didn't feel the need to speak like he learned from dumpster graffiti.  
  
    Abel pulled a ridiculously sour expression. "Ugh. I don't know how, Pixie. I don't know this jackwagon well enough to be him. Are you absolutely sure that's what it's going to take to get us to switch back? Because if it is, I think we're boned. Hibiki called me out pretty much immediately," he admitted.  
  
    The silence was once again thunderous with Yamato's complete lack of surprise. Hibiki had, after all, called him out as well. Still, he had been wondering the same, so he tilted towards Pixie. "I'd like to know as well," he interjected, a sharp line etching between his brows.  
  
    Pixie looked annoyed by their questions and somersaulted in the air to raise above their heads. "I already told you I don't know! Maybe you should have thought of that before you dummies attacked each other over a giant miasma!"  
  
    " _Me_?!" Abel shrieked. He jabbed a finger at Yamato's face and almost prodded him right between the eyes. "Detective Conan over here is the one who thought it'd be super smart to get all up in my business when I wasn't doing anything!"  
  
    Yamato's spine went rigid as he leaned away from him. "Laying the blame at my feet, are you? Naturally. Can you honestly say I had _no_ reason to engage? You were the only foreign entity present within a courtyard full of gathered cell phones. You don't really think I had no reason whatsoever to believe the demons might have gathered them to summon you, do you?"  
  
    He could tell by Abel's growing silence that the idea had not even occurred to him. Simpleton. Of course Yamato was going to engage. He was the Chief of JP's, not some inexperienced layperson stumbling upon his first demon. He knew what to expect, and he knew that typical demons did not make the effort to gather human cell phones into a secluded area without an extremely compelling reason to do so.  
  
    "I...guess I can see that," Abel finally conceded. That put out expression he wore didn't last long, however. Abel's hand cut through the air as he turned towards Pixie. "Wait a minute. What are you doing here? I asked you to keep an eye on Hibiki."  
  
    "I was!" she asserted. "He was right behind me!"  
  
    Alarmed, he and Yamato exchanged glances, then they both bent over the rail. There on the ground was Hibiki, his wiry arms wound tightly around the neutralizing agent. His team was already skirmishing with a few of the lesser demons attracted to Alioth. It figured they'd be so engrossed in their petty arguing they hadn't even noticed his presence.  
  
    "Are you kidding me?" Abel groused. When Yamato glanced over to him, Abel was glaring at him.  
  
    "What now?"  
  
    "That!" He gestured wildly towards Hibiki and made an indignant noise. "You couldn't have made it smaller? Look at him, that thing's the size of his entire god damned torso. You know he's put literally _nothing_ into strength, right? It's five. I looked. He is five strong. I'm kind of impressed he can even carry it at all. How do you expect him to use his phone?"  
  
    Yamato responded with little more than an aggrieved sigh. "He'll be fine. He can handle himself without you constantly babysitting him."  
  
    Abel sneered at him coldly. "Yeah, shows what you know. Nebiros showed up on Tuesday. Hibiki would be dead if Pixie and I hadn't intervened. I don't think wanting to keep him from dying really counts in the same vein as babysitting, but fuck me, what do I know, right?"  
  
    He dismissed Yamato with that icy look still on his face. Truth be told...that particular piece of news disturbed him more than he cared to admit. Yamato hadn't realized Hibiki had had such a dangerous encounter. He'd never mentioned it to him. Though that might be due to Abel's bizarre desire for secrecy regarding his presence moreso than any desire to keep Yamato in the dark. Still.  
  
    He was focused intently on Hibiki when he felt something plastic shift against the side of his neck. With a sharp flinch, he whipped his head towards Abel to see his fingers around a bright red cord that disappeared into Yamato's shirt. He plucked it out and unplugged the MP3 player to which it was attached. "You're not using this, right?"  
  
    Yamato wrinkled his nose. "Of course not."  
  
    "Yeah, that's what I figured." Abel tossed the cord away from himself and plugged in the earbuds he was wearing instead. "Let me guess, you hate music. Well, they do say that music soothes the savage beast. Maybe that's why you're such a throbbing dickvein. You should look into it."  
  
    Before he was afforded the chance to respond, Abel turned the MP3 player on until yet more noise burst from the headphones. "Just as well, we need some bomb ass background music for Hibiki's fight. Here you go, babe." He passed one of the buds up to Pixie, who was currently sitting cross-legged on top of his head. Yamato was not particularly enthused to see that she was braiding a lock of his hair, but he imagined that if he were to complain, the two of them would conspire to do something far more upsetting.  
  
    Pixie perked up and paused her braiding to grab the earbud and prop it against her tiny shoulder like it was a phone. They were actually sharing music. How peculiar.  
  
    "It's been so long since I listened to it I can't even remember what all I have on here," Abel commented, his thumb working at the MP3 player as he shuffled through his songs. "Oh, shit! I have the Mortal Kombat theme song? Aww yeah. Man, I have such great taste."  
  
    If Yamato actually believed in the concept of karma, he would be cursing it all the way to his grave.  
  
    "Alright, realtalk." Abel once again disrupted his thoughts. Yamato sighed and tilted his head to regard him with expectation sharp in the line of his shoulders. "We both know you're going to be more familiar with the demons here than I will," he said. Yamato quirked a brow at him.  
  
    "Do we know that?" He sounded sarcastic purely because he was already fatigued of being around Abel at all, but his words were sincere. Abel spoke to him like Yamato ought to know him as well as Hibiki did, but they'd never met until their incredibly unfortunate encounter the day before.  
  
    Apparently Abel realized that, because he hesitated and nodded. "Er, right. Well, I would. I keep assuming you know everything Hibiki does. Sorry. Basically, your...version, I guess, of Hell isn't completely identical to mine. They have a lot in common, but mine had demons I have yet to see in yours, and vice versa. So you sort of have the home court advantage. You feel me?"  
  
    Yamato made a face at him and his choice of words, but he understood the gist nevertheless. "I get it. Unfortunately, I can't say I'm familiar with the demon your Pixie described. As far as I'm aware, we have no demon capable of rearranging bodies like this." He'd scoured their databases for that very information, but he'd already resigned himself to the possibility of coming up with nothing. As he had. He knew their compendium backwards and forwards. If there was a demon who cursed others to swap their physical appearances and abilities, it was so obscure no one had ever encountered it before.  
  
     He frowned again and cut his eyes over to Abel. "You said you're able to traverse across universes. Would that not be significant? You're here. Since your universe also contains such a demon, would it not stand to reason it might have access to this world as you do?"  
  
    Abel waved an arm at him and leaned his weight on the rail once again. "That is a good point, but miasmas like that don't lead to other 'verses, only your Hell. It takes more work than that to get to a whole other universe. So as far as that goes, we're still at square one. Any miasma that appears here will lead directly to your Hell and your Hell exclusively. I can say for sure nothing followed me here, so I should be the only thing here from my world. Er, and Pixie."  
  
    Hm. That wasn't particularly helpful. It was interesting, of course, but it wasn't going to get them any further in this. Yamato was still irritated that he didn't know what caused it to begin with. "Are you certain a demon is responsible?" he asked, his eyes shifting upwards towards the Pixie. She had finished her braid and was making a second one, but she stopped as she realized he was addressing her.  
  
    "Nope," she said. "I just know there is one where we come from. If its magic got to you while you were fighting over the miasmas, it would explain what happened. Plus you could actually fix it in that case. If it's not that demon, I don't know how you would switch back."  
  
    "It figures," Abel grumbled. "What kind of sadist makes you pretend to successfully fool all your friends before you're allowed to change back? That's stupid."  
  
    Pixie wrinkled her pointed nose and shrugged. "Why does any demon do what they do? We don't like you guys and ruining your day is fun."  
  
    Abel and Yamato sighed at the same time.  
  
    For his part, Yamato decided not to dwell on that. "Then what are the alternatives? If it's not required that a demon be at the root of this issue, what else may have caused it? We have no record of anything of this nature occurring, but you seem rather less surprised."  
  
    To his eternal annoyance, Abel interrupted with an exclamation of upset. "Oh, shit!" He very nearly threw himself off the balcony, his hips pressed right against the metal as he strained against it. "Hibiki dropped his phone! Damn it, I told you that fucking giant can was a stupid idea!" He almost hooked his leg over when Pixie went tumbling off his head and grabbed him by the collar.  
  
    "Human legs, you dumb idiot! You're on the third floor!"  
  
    "God damn it!" He gave in to his childish fuming while Yamato watched with disdain.  
  
    "Sako already grabbed it," Yamato snapped. "Would you control yourself before you get me killed? Or don't. It hardly makes a difference to me." It was the first time he bothered to verbalize it, but it was true. Yamato might not like Abel parading around inside of his body, but if they never switched back at all, he could see very few down sides. He had no attachment to his superficial appearance. If he could take control of JP's in this immortal, magically superior body, then why not do so?  
  
    Immediately, Abel whirled on him and grit his teeth. "Don't get too comfortable, asshole. Yeah, I'm sure you don't give a shit because you upgraded. For me this is _very_ much a demotion. You have to eat and sleep and all that shit. You're like a fucking Tamagotchi I have to live inside."  
  
    Once again, Abel sagged over the balcony's edge and watched Hibiki. As Yamato had expected, he was doing fine, even with an admittedly cumbersome armload. He was able to place it before Alioth, which at least took care of that. Yamato nodded to himself before he turned to glare at Abel. Impulsive moron.  
  
    "For someone with such an obvious attachment to him, you don't trust Hibiki at all, do you?"  
  
    Yamato watched as Abel slapped his hands together and faced him with a wicked grin. "Oh, yes. Let's do this. Let's talk about our obvious attachments, _please_. I've been dying to do this since Monday."  
  
    "Excuse me?" God, what the hell was wrong with him? Abel was so nonsensical. Yamato's eyes narrowed into frosty slits. "Answer the question. If you have such a high opinion of him, why do you feel the need to act as some demonic nanny? Or does it upset you to think he can get by without you?"  
  
    For a split second, Abel faltered. That little barb proved more effective than Yamato had predicted. Abel sniffed at him and turned away to check on Hibiki. "Oh please. Why don't you save the psychoanalyzing for the professionals? The idea that you know enough about how other people work to armchair diagnose anyone is laughable."  
  
    Yamato sneered openly. Did Abel honestly expect him to believe that the doe-eyed masses had some hidden depths he'd heretofore been unable to excavate? How absurd. He was not a brainless twit. He knew what they were like: simple, stupid cowards, easily terrified, easily cowed, easily dismissed.  
  
    He moved to retort, but a small explosion stole his attention away. They both craned their necks once more to see Alioth in its death throes, a pitiful whine blaring from it. "I told you he could take care of himself," Yamato murmured, his voice cold and pointed.  
  
    Abel just rolled his eyes yet again. Each time he did it made Yamato feel more validated in his decision to never, ever breed.  
  
    The man did relax, though, and he loosened up where he stood. "Whatever. What were we talking about again?"  
  
    Pixie sank down onto his shoulder again and tugged her earbud back around her neck. "We were talking about how embarrassing it is that you can't figure out how to get your body back."  
  
    "Wow. Unnecessary."  
  
    Almost compulsively, Abel reached for his MP3 player to begin thumbing through his songs again. Apparently he was now content to let Hibiki do his job in peace without trying to leap into the fray. "Well...I don't know what to do," he admitted. "I didn't even know this was possible. I'm kind of at a loss here."  
  
    Pixie hummed and climbed back onto his head. "It's not so bad. I like your hair better this way."  
  
    " _How could you possibly_?!"  
  
    She ignored Abel's outburst deftly. Yamato suspected she was very much used to his tantrums at this point. "I don't know," she mused. "Maybe your magic just doesn't like you. You never used it much." Another shrug, and she went back to toying with Yamato's hair.  
  
    And just like that, Yamato understood with crystal clear certainty why he loathed Abel to his core.  
  
    It wasn't just that Abel was casual or that he had a boyish dedication to taking nothing seriously, or that he was a rude asshole. It was that he was all of those things solely because he knew that he could be. Because he knew he was so strong that nothing else could ever threaten him. He knew that he was untouchable, and he took that for granted.  
  
    Abel did not _deserve_ that kind of knowledge, that kind of power, that kind of security in this cruel and unfathomable universe. He did not deserve to be a god.  
  
    He did not even appreciate that that was what he was.  
  
    Yamato remained silent. He watched them both, his eyes drilling into them as if he could penetrate down to their very souls.  
  
    Abel had no idea what he'd had, and now he could have no true idea of what he'd lost.  
  
    Yamato took a deep breath and turned to see Hibiki land the final blow. Alioth shuddered and died, breaking off into splinters as its main body had before. It made him smile.  
  
    Perhaps that Wednesday hadn't been as full of misfortune as he'd thought.  
  
    Perhaps it was kismet after all.


	9. Chapter 9

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter was beta read by Tomurau.
> 
> I'm so sorry for the unexpected hiatus!

* * *

 

 

    The second Alioth exploded into a corona of blue and black light, Hibiki released such a long-held breath it seemed to rattle his entire rib cage on the way out. Relief surged through him. They'd triumphed over the fifth Septentrione to grace them with its presence, and as exhausted as he was, he felt absolutely _amazing_.  
  
    "Hell yeah!" Daichi's voice echoed through the street, and he whirled over towards Hibiki with his palm in the air. With a grin, Hibiki slapped his own against it and gripped at Daichi's hand. "We did it! Look at us go!"  
  
    "We did, didn't we!" Io's face was flushed with exertion, but she nevertheless trotted over to them with a bright smile on her face. Hibiki high-fived her too, earning himself a sweet laugh. She looked just as relieved as he did. Truth be told, Alioth was rough. It wasn't as though any of the Septentriones had gone down especially easily, but the outspread of poison as they attacked the shell was brutal. Only one of them could equip Null Curse, which meant the rest of them had to fight over Anti-Curse, fight over Anti-Ailment, or pray.  
  
    His ringtone cut through the air, as he'd become accustomed to. Yamato always called after the end of a battle. Even if he was in an extremely weird mood today, it was nice to know that hadn't changed. Hibiki flipped his phone open and held it to his ear. "Hello?"  
  
    The familiar sound of Yamato's voice filtered through the speaker. "Congratulations on your victory, Hibiki." God, it should have embarrassed him how much Yamato's easy compliments made his stomach twist. He could feel his neck grow hot as he pressed his phone a little more insistently to his ear.  
  
    "Thank you. Would you believe me if I told you it was a piece of cake?"  
  
    He was rewarded with a silky laugh that went straight down to his toes. Hibiki shivered a bit and stuffed his arms in a loose cross in the hopes that no one would notice how flustered he was. Yamato pressed on, apparently oblivious to Hibiki's flimsy constitution in the face of his sultry voice.  
  
    "You are remarkable. So, yes, I would believe you. Is that what you're telling me?"  
  
    Hibiki snickered helplessly and loosened his arms, reaching up to muss at his own hair. "It held its own pretty well, but it was no match for Team Tokyo."  
  
    "Indeed." Yamato laughed again; it was well on its way to becoming Hibiki's favorite sound. "But I didn't merely call to flatter you. I wanted to let you know that I've organized a dinner party for you and your companions." He outlined the time while Hibiki stood on in shock, blinking stupidly and trying to process the fact that Yamato Hotsuin had just invited them all to dinner.  
  
    "I- Really?" he blurted after too long a silence.  
  
    "Really. Are you surprised? You've all outpaced my expectations so thoroughly, I feel you've earned such a gesture."  
  
    "Oh, I- Well, I mean, not necessarily. You just don't seem like...the party sort, I guess." Hibiki coughed and reached for his hair again. "But it sounds amazing. We'll be there. Should I let everyone else know?"  
  
    "No need. I will invite them myself."  
  
    Hm. As weird as the invitation was, Hibiki had to admit Yamato seemed a great deal more relaxed than he had been all day. "You sound a lot more like yourself," he chanced. "Are you feeling any better?"  
  
    With that question in the air, Yamato hesitated so long that Hibiki regretted saying anything. Maybe he'd overstepped a boundary? Fortunately, before he could panic too long, he heard Yamato huff through the phone. "Yes," he said finally. "Thank you. I'm fine. I..." Yamato trailed off, which was so odd for him Hibiki couldn't help but worry. He was dying to know what the hell was going on with him, but so far both he and Abel had just straight up ignored or evaded any of his attempts to find out. Now seemed no different.  
  
    Eventually, a sigh rattled through the speaker. "I apologize for my deeply unprofessional behavior over the course of today. It's been...a day." Something like bitter exhaustion swept through his voice so much that Hibiki couldn't help feeling sorry for him.  
  
    "I'm really sorry. I promise we'll be on our best behavior. Thank you again for the dinner. That's really nice of you to do."  
  
    "As I said, it's the least I could do." They bid one another goodbye and hung up, and Hibiki turned towards his friends to see both Daichi and Io almost pressed against his back. Bewildered, he blinked at them both.  
  
    "Uh?"  
  
    As one, they both leapt back from him. "S- Sorry! What did he say?" Io asked.  
  
    He pocketed his phone and shot them both a huge grin. "We have a dinner reservation, courtesy of Yamato. He's throwing us a party."  
  
    "Yo, what?!" Daichi looked exactly as shocked as Hibiki had felt hearing the words 'dinner party' leave Yamato Hotsuin's mouth. "He's feeding us? Dude! That's freakin' sweet! I take back every mean thing I ever said about him. If this is part of his weird personality flip, I'll totally take it!"  
  
    Hibiki let his arms fold loosely across his stomach. "To be honest, I don't think it is."  
      
    "You don't?"  
  
    He looked up to see Io watching him, her eyebrows lightly knit. He shook his head back at her. "No. That was the most...er, in-character I've heard him all day."  
  
    "I did hear you say something about that..." She paused and blushed brightly. "Er, s- sorry to be nosy... I just noticed that you asked. I've been wondering about him myself. He's been very strange today."  
  
    Hibiki nodded again and frowned. "I did, but he didn't really answer me. He said he was fine."  
  
    "Fine?!" Daichi scoffed loudly and shucked a hand to one of his hips. "That guy did a total one-eighty practically over night! Er, well, maybe more like, I don't know, a ninety? He's still a huge dick, so it's not like it's _total_ opposite day. But still!!"  
  
    Hibiki could see Makoto stiffen where she stood off to the side, and he cut a hand across his throat. "C'mon, guys, cut it out. You know it makes Makoto uncomfortable when you talk about him like that."  
  
    "Oh, yeah." Daichi's shoulders slumped. "Sorry, Makoto!"  
  
    She approached the trio of them and slid her phone away as Hibiki had. "It's alright. We should be heading back soon. It's still dangerous here. We'll be safer close to headquarters." She was definitely right. Io and Daichi took the lead, but before he wandered after them, Hibiki tilted his head to see Makoto still eyeing him with a tinge of uncertainty in her face. Her eyebrows were furrowed, and her mouth was pulled into a tight frown. "Everything okay, Makoto?"  
  
    "Actually, I was hoping I could speak with you." That she waited until the others were a decent amount ahead was a clear enough indication that she was hoping to speak _only_ with him, so he slowed a little until he was more confident they were out of earshot.  
  
    "Sure. What's up?"  
  
    Her reluctance to speak was damn near rolling off her. He could guess exactly what it was she wanted to talk about, given the blush creeping up from beneath her collar. "It's about Chief Hotsuin," she confessed. Her shoulders tensed harder. "I was hoping you would know more about his... ..." She trailed off once again, groping hard for something to say that was no doubt accurate without being offensive, as if she thought he'd be able to hear them from wherever the hell he was. It was kind of cute. "...Condition."  
  
    Hibiki wasn't quite able to stop himself from stifling a giggle. 'Condition' was definitely the most neutral thing he could think of to call it himself. Unfortunately, he could do little more than roll his shoulders. "I don't. I'm really sorry. It's true that I tried to push him, but he was totally mum when I asked. Why? Did something happen?" He knew she was there at that catastrophic meeting where he'd yelled at everyone, but surely she'd seen more of him throughout the day than they had, given her position.  
  
    Her anxiety was palpable. It was obviously bothering her to talk about Yamato behind his back, but he could tell she was desperately worried about him enough to do it anyway. They all were. She inclined her head once and sighed sharply, squaring her shoulders. "I had to wake him this morning."  
  
    Hibiki blinked at her several times. "I take it that's weird for him?"  
  
    "Yes!" she blurted. "He _always_ wakes at 0500, but this morning I tried to find him for our first meeting, and he was still in bed!" Her entire face was red as a cherry at this point. It was ridiculously hard not to laugh, but Hibiki swallowed it valiantly. "I wanted to leave right away -- h- he was still _indecent_ \-- but then he sat up and started screaming 'what year is it?'!"  
  
    That was enough to break him. Hibiki bent over and laughed long and hard. He could see it all play out perfectly in his head, and it was entirely too much for him to handle. "I- I'm sorry, Makoto. It's not funny. ...It is kind of funny, but I know that was probably crazy awkward for you." He straightened up again and wiped hastily at his eyes. "Do you want me to see if I can talk to him?"  
  
    She nodded again, shamefaced and miserable. He felt terrible, but seriously, that was an amazing mental image he would treasure until the day he died. Surely she couldn't fault him for that? "Please. I'm sure that if he'd be willing to confide in anyone, it would be you."  
  
    Hibiki composed himself and nodded deeply. "I promise I'll try. I'm concerned about him, too. If there's something we can do for him, you'll be the first to know."  
  
    For the first time since they'd started speaking, Makoto relaxed. "Thank you very much. I appreciate that." He was sure that she did, but if he were to be honest with himself, his motives were purely selfish. He wanted to make sure Yamato was okay entirely for his own benefit; the dinner party just seemed like as good an excuse as any to attempt further questioning.  
  
    Unfortunately, by the time the dinner party was scheduled to start, Yamato was absolutely nowhere to be found. Hibiki would have been the last to arrive had Yamato actually been there, but as he hurried into the hallway to see everyone else gathered, the man's conspicuous absence was the first thing he noticed. His shoulders fell in disappointment.  
  
    He wasn't the only one irritated by said absence, either. Daichi looked grumpy as he threw himself against Hibiki's shoulder. "It's not like you to be late! Where the hell is Yamato, anyway? I'm starving!"  
  
    Hibiki noted a flicker of movement from the corner of his eye and turned to see Abel glaring openly at Daichi. Damn, even Abel was there? Yamato had invited Abel? Or he _was_ Abel. Hibiki still wasn't at all convinced that they hadn't swapped, but he couldn't come up with any satisfying reason for them to hide such a thing. Besides that, Abel had genuinely seemed to like Daichi and Io. Today, Yamato was about as patient with them as usual, give or take a few f-bombs that were highly out of the norm. His outburst would have been out of character for them both, for one reason or another.  
  
    "Look, I'm sure he'll be here." Hibiki patted Daichi between the shoulder blades. "Uhm, though now that I think about it, he just said he was going to invite us all. Technically speaking, he didn't actually say he'd be here too. Not that that means he won't."  
  
    "He better show." An impatient huff of breath left Hinako as she appeared at the shoulder not currently occupied by Daichi. "Are you going to ask him about everything?"  
  
    "'Everything'?" Hibiki echoed. He tilted his head. "Fukuoka?"  
  
    "The file, too."  
  
    Oh, right. The 'Citizen Refinement Agenda'. Hibiki fidgeted with his phone a bit unhappily. "...Does it have to be tonight?"  
  
    "What?! C'mon, Hibiki, don't lose your balls now," Hinako chided. He made a sharp face at her. That was unnecessary! "You're the only one he won't immediately stab for asking. Probably."  
  
    "Thanks for the vote of confidence. I just feel like an asshole doing it right here. Can't it wait 'til after the dinner? He didn't have to do this for us."  
  
    By now their conversation had attracted Abel's attention moreso than his irritation with Daichi. He slid away from the wall and crooked a fingertip, dragging Daichi away from Hibiki's shoulder and earning himself a shriek of surprise. Poor Daichi. Smoothly, Abel replaced the freshly vacant spot with himself and let his eyes flicker up and down Hibiki's face. "Dare I ask?"  
  
    Ah, that was right. No one had actually mentioned it to Abel. Mostly because Hibiki was pretty sure he wouldn't care. He tilted his phone towards him to show him the weird file Ronaldo had given to him. "Ronaldo found some corrupted file that supposedly belonged to Yamato, but he wasn't able to decrypt anything but the title."  
  
    "I can see that," Abel murmured. Then he rolled his eyes. "How ominously convenient." His words made Hibiki giggle, and he leaned heavily against his arm.  
  
    "Mm. So I guess this means I get to be the one to poke the snake about it."  
  
    "Snake?" Hibiki looked up to see Abel cocking an eyebrow at him.  
  
    "Dragon?" He blinked innocently and looked back at his phone to wiggle it. "I mean that in the nicest way possible. It's probably perfectly unremarkable. It's not that I'm even afraid to ask him or anything, I just feel like a jerk when he probably worked hard to do this for us and then we immediately turn around to interrogate him. Am I being unreasonable?"  
  
    Daichi made his way back over to them and shot Abel a wounded look. "Yeah! Probably! What if he put all this on just so you feel too guilty to bug him about it?"  
  
    "Ah, yes." Abel draped an elbow against Hibiki's shoulder, nearly causing him to leap out of his skin. "Organize a dinner to distract from your worthless, decrypted title, of which he is entirely unaware. How very crafty of him. It's positively Machiavellian."  
  
    "Okay, wow! No need to be an ass about it! Fine, then why isn't he here?! The food is just sitting there!"  
  
    Abel regarded him with another acidic glare and dropped his skinny arm. "...Just eat," he muttered, suddenly looking extremely tired.  
  
    "Yeah, just eat. I'll tell him I suggested it if he asks." Hibiki threw him a bright smile and wiggled his fingers towards the food. "I'm sure he won't mind. Especially since he is ten minutes late."  
  
    That ten minutes stretched well into twenty, then thirty. Hibiki hunched nervously by the exit with a small plate of half-eaten food clutched in his hand. He'd suggested it to his friends, but he hadn't actually believed that Yamato just straight up wouldn't show. What the hell? Where was he?  
  
    Thirty-five minutes after the party had started, Hibiki received his answer in the form of the most alarming text he'd ever received in his life.  
  
_You want to go for a joy ride in this car I stole?_  
  
    He actually spit out his mouthful of food.  
  
    "Dude, gross!"  
      
    He jerked his head upwards to see Daichi pulling a face that was stretched somewhere between sympathy and disgust. "You okay?"  
  
    "Uhm, yeah. Excuse me!" Hibiki shoved his plate on the first flat surface he could find and whipped around to duck out of the building, Daichi hot on his heels. "Daichi. Look at this text." The instant they were away from the others, he shoved his screen under Daichi's nose.  
  
    "Someone stole a car?! Holy shit, is that _Yamato_!?!"  
  
    "Yes!" Hibiki hurried for the elevator, one hand clutching at his phone and the other wound around Daichi's bicep. It felt like freaking ages for it to crest over the ground, but when the doors finally opened, Hibiki spilled out from between them and jogged out of the building. Right on cue, a sleek black car pulled up against the sidewalk, Yamato hanging out of the window with a pair of sunglasses on his face and the foxiest smile he'd ever beheld on a human mouth.  
  
    "Sup, nerds." He reclined back in his seat and took a long swig of something violently pink from a glass bottle. Beside him, Daichi sputtered.  
  
    "Are you drinking and driving?!"  
  
    Yamato pulled the bottle away from his lips and stared at them, tilting his head until the sunglasses slid far enough down his nose he could look at them over the frames. "Gee, grandma, thanks for your concern, but it's a fucking wine cooler." He shot Daichi a look of abject disgust and threw back another drink just to make a point. "It's got, like, .02 percent alcohol content. I could get a better buzz drinking nail polish remover."  
  
    Whatever progress Yamato had made throughout the day, it evidently came to a screeching halt, then revved backwards as hard as physically possible. Hibiki snorted in disbelief and inspected the car. "Can I ask what compelled you to steal a car? And how? Do you steal cars a lot?"  
  
    Yamato was sucking idly at the lip of the bottle, but he looked back at Hibiki and perked up. "Oh, no. I YouTubed how to hotwire it. No, I'm kidding. Some idiot left the keys in it. I've never driven a car in my life, and we're all going to die anyway, so I thought, you know, what the hell? Why not live a little?" He jammed the bottle in his lap and threw one of his arms over the door. "You want to come joy riding or not?"  
  
    As thirsty as he was to hang out with Yamato, he was not thirsty enough to climb into a stolen car with a Yamato who may or may not have been inebriated to at least some degree and was also driving a car for the very first time. Luckily for him and his standing with Yamato, Daichi brightened up and moved towards the car. "Oh, hey! I have a driver's license! I could drive you?"  
  
    "Daichi..." Yamato leaned back in his seat and chuckled warmly, which grew steadily harder until he was laughing with his face against the steering wheel. "Oh my god. I-" He sniffed and sat up, tilting his head towards Daichi again and grinning. He'd never seen so much of Yamato's perfect teeth before. "As much as I sincerely respect your commitment to upholding The Law, I do feel a certain obligation to remind you that all the cops are dead."  
  
    "Oh... Yeah." Daichi sagged there on the pavement. Hibiki frowned and rubbed at his bicep. To his shock, it was enough to elicit some sympathy from Yamato, too. A jangle of metal sounded as the car keys made impact with Daichi's sternum. He only just had time to catch them before they fell to the ground.  
  
    "Ah, what the hell. Get in here." Yamato climbed out of the driver's seat, sliding over the console and flopping down with the wine cooler clutched in his fingers. "Hibiki, you sure you don't want to come?"  
  
    "Nope. I'm good! I take it this means you're definitely not coming to the dinner party."  
  
    Yamato paused, sitting up and blinking. "Uh. No." Again, his head whipped over to him. "Did I tell you I was?" From anyone else that would sound sarcastic as hell, but he sounded legitimately unsure and ever so slightly alarmed. Hibiki scoffed at him fondly.  
  
    "Technically, no, you didn't. As I reminded everyone else."  
  
    He remained tense for another short moment, but eventually Yamato relaxed in his seat. "Oh. Right. Well..." His face collapsed into a slightly sour expression, and he waved his bottle a little haphazardly. "I don't mean any offense, but I don't want to hang out with, like, _any_ of you. Except you, Hibs. Daichi's pretty cool too."  
  
    "What, really?" Daichi sat up straight in his seat. Yamato merely nodded absently and flexed his free hand. He seemed to be thinking about it pretty thoroughly, running through a list of their friends and tallying them on his fingers. It was extremely funny to Hibiki for some reason.  
  
    "Yeah, when you're not being a mopey little shitbird. Hinako is alright, but I'm mad at her right now, so you know what? Fuck her. I'm good out here with my sweet ride and my last convenience store wine coolers I had to fight a dude for." Yamato sniffed haughtily and downed the last of his wine cooler, then turned to Daichi. "You wanna go do doughnuts in the parking lot?"  
  
    "Whoa, holy shit!" A wild grin seized him as he faced Yamato, his hands gripping at the steering wheel. "When did you get awesome?"  
  
    Hibiki watched in mounting amusement as Yamato snapped with both hands and thrust his fingers towards Daichi's face. "Wednesday."  
  
    He watched Daichi peel out of the spot with a slow shake of his head. There was absolutely no way this was going to end anything other than poorly.  
  
    At least if they all did indeed die tomorrow, Hibiki could go out knowing what it looked like for Yamato Hotsuin to do finger guns. Silver lining, and all that.  
  
    God, they were so in trouble.


	10. Chapter 10

* * *

 

 

    About as Hibiki had predicted, the pair of them were gone on their 'joy ride' for less than a full minute before the quiet night air was dispelled by the squeal of tires, a high-pitched, piercing scream, and the crunch of metal. For a split second, Hibiki was too shocked by it to move. Then panic surged through him, and he tore off in their direction and rounded the corner of a building to see the stolen car squished pitifully against the side of a brick wall that'd proved much sturdier than it.  
  
    The wreck itself didn't look too bad, but before he was permitted to experience even a modicum of relief, his heart leaped into his throat. Yamato was almost entirely out the window, folded in half and hanging over the door. "Oh, God! Y- Yamato!" Hibiki rushed over to him as hard as possible, and he reached out for him when he noticed Yamato's shoulders quivering hard. "...Yamato? Are you hurt?"  
  
    He watched, stunned as Yamato took a huge breath and thrust his hands against the door to push himself up. He was laughing so hard tears were streaming down his face. "Did you-" He couldn't finish. He was wracked with such intense laughter he fell utterly silent for several seconds, then struggled to speak again. "Did you- Fuck!" Yamato doubled over with yet more hysterical laughter, revealing a pale-faced Daichi with a death grip on the wheel.  
  
    "Shut the hell up, Yamato! It isn't funny!"  
  
    Hibiki was seized by the powerful urge to strangle both of them. "What- what _happened_? You just scared the shit out of me!"  
  
    Yamato grabbed both Hibiki's shoulders and spilled the rest of the way over the window, coming unsteadily to his feet. Even as he convulsed with another peal of laughter, he wiped at his face with his gloved hands and sniffed hard. "Hibiki, please tell me you heard him scream like a little girl. When I say that, I don't mean to cast an unflattering light on either Daichi or little girls, I mean that if I had been standing where you were, and I heard that shit, I would believe I was playing partial witness to an attempted kidnapping of an actual six year old." A pause, then Yamato face-planted into Hibiki's chest and laughed even harder. He was too overcome to speak. Helplessly, Hibiki patted at his shaking back and looked over to see Daichi clambering out of the car as well.  
  
    "Alright, spill it. What happened?"  
  
    Daichi covered his face with both hands. "Agggh! It's -- not -- funny! A freaking cat ran out in front of me and I panicked!"  
  
    Yamato was sagging against him so hard he almost knocked him over, but Hibiki managed to stay upright and prop up Yamato somehow. "You actually swerved?!"  
  
    "I know you're not supposed to, but I couldn't help it! It scared the crap out of me!"  
  
    At that moment, Yamato finally righted himself and dragged his palm across a tear-stained cheek. "I don't think anything that funny is ever going to happen to me again." Then he stopped and frowned deeply. "...Now I'm sad."  
  
    "Thanks, jerk," Daichi muttered. "I'm glad my terror was so freaking amusing to you!! We could have just died!"  
  
    "Yeah, but we didn't." All Daichi earned for his trouble was a flippant shrug from Yamato -- then his face fell sharply. "Oh, shit! My wine coolers!" He wedged himself through the back window, but soon enough, he popped back out with an unbroken, unopened bottle. "Nevermind, they survived. I'm impressed! Damn, that's some sturdy glass."  
  
    Both he and Daichi watched with expressions that occupied distinctly different extremes of the spectrum as Yamato opened his mouth, closed his teeth around the cap and popped it off, then spat it a good few feet away from him. Yamato paused and wagged the bottle at them. "You guys want one?"  
  
    Hibiki made a noise, his voice caught between disbelief and intrigue. "That depends. Are you gonna open mine with your teeth too?"  
  
    "Why?" Yamato quirked an eyebrow at him and took a swig of his drink. "Is that going to make you more or less inclined to say yes?" God, when did he get so flirtatious? Oh, right. Probably Wednesday. Heat slid up along the sides of his neck as Yamato threw his arm around it and tugged him close. "That's pretty indirect even for an indirect kiss. Don't be shy, Hibiki. I'll give you a direct one if you want."  
  
    The blush blazed beneath his skin with a vengeance. Hibiki ducked out from beneath his grip and laughed, flustered and embarrassed as hell. "Ahaha... Uhm, we should probably get back. Next time you wreck, you may not make it out quite so unscathed. I'd prefer that you guys stay in one piece."  
  
    An unenthused scowl drew Yamato's pale features together. He peered down into the neck of his bottle and swirled it idly. "I'd rather not. I have absolutely zero desire to plant my ass in your friends' stupid hot seat tonight, thanks. Why, you think they'll still be there?"  
  
    Probably they would, truth be told. They seemed pretty intent to grill him tonight. Hibiki couldn't imagine him taking that well, though. "Well...you are kind of an hour late at this point. Maybe they're gone? I don't know."  
  
    "Hmm." Yamato seemed to be considering it. Eventually, he tilted the bottle to his lips and drained a good half of it before he finally sighed. "Alright, fuck it. Let's get this over with. C'mon, Daichi."  
  
    Yamato was already moving away from him, but Hibiki made no effort to follow after him. He was staring at Daichi, who was still looking at the ground and sulking from Yamato's onslaught. "So...it's Daichi now?"  
  
    "Eh?" Yamato swung around and squinted at him.  
  
    "You've called him Daichi at least three times now. I'm starting to think it's not an accident."  
  
    "Oh." Yamato rolled his eyes and shoved his free hand into his pocket. "Sure. Why not? I don't do anything by accident." He fell silent and, apparently, considered his own words a little more deeply before his lips peeled back in a slight grimace. "Actually, nevermind. Forget I said that. But, yes. We had a _moment_ , so I figured he was due for an upgrade. Plus I need the real estate on my wrist."  
  
    "A 'moment'?!" Daichi parroted, his face awash in slight confusion, but mostly upset, like he wasn't terribly thrilled to have had any kind of Moment with Yamato. Especially one he wasn't even aware of. "Wait, what do you mean upgrade?"  
  
    Yamato regarded him with a snarky smirk. "You know, a promotion from the usual formalities. You call me by my first name like you think we're friends, I call you Shijima to remind you that I don't care about you or anyone else on this wasted earth, and then you call me a dickhead under your breath when you think I can't hear you. I feel we've moved past that, don't you?"  
  
    "Uh..." A blink, then Daichi opened his mouth. "Y- Right. Uhm, sure, Yamato."  
  
    "Of course sure. Now come _on_ , nerds. Maybe if we're sneaky enough we can just slip by before they notice I'm there." Yamato swaggered off, leaving them behind and taking another swallow of his wine cooler. Hibiki wished he knew if Abel was a particularly big fan of wine, but that wasn't exactly something he'd ever thought to ask him.  
  
    His hesitation to trust his own gut was probably stupid, but Hibiki couldn't help it. He wanted to believe that at least one of them would be honest with him if they were in a predicament they couldn't get out of. He wanted to freaking shake them.  
  
    But Yamato didn't seem of a mind to give him the opportunity, because he was very quickly leaving them in the dust, striding ahead on his long legs. Hibiki sighed and picked up the pace to catch up with him just before he disappeared through the door.  
  
    On Yamato's behalf, Hibiki had nursed a faint hope that his friends would have cleared out as well. He did want answers just as much as they did, but he also felt that he could get them without sacrificing Yamato's enormously good mood. Tragically for them both, their hopes were dashed when they exited the elevator to see everyone still waiting for them. Great.  
  
    Immediately, Yamato slid away from him to make a break for it, but right then, Hinako turned and spotted them. "There you are!"  
  
    Yamato froze, his shoulders tensing and his face falling into a scowl. "...Mnh." He sighed and turned to face the small crowd of them with a curled lip. "Yes. Here I am. My apologies for being late. I was hoping you'd be gone by now."  
  
    "Wha-" Hinako balled both her fists and grit her teeth at him. "So you were avoiding us!"  
  
    "Yeah, I was, obviously." Yamato sneered at her and gestured with his mostly-empty bottle. "But I sorely doubt that the actual reason is anything like the stupid one you probably think it is."  
  
    "Ugh!!"  
  
    Yamato chose to ignore that outburst and shrugged his shoulders, loping forward to cut through them since there was no longer any point in trying to sneak through. "Right, well, it's late, party's over, I sincerely hope you enjoyed eating all my food. Bye."  
  
    Hibiki watched with ever-mounting anxiety as Hinako slid sideways and planted herself in his path. "We saw Fukuoka."  
  
    He stopped a foot in front of her and did little more than stare at her and blink. It was, evidently, not the reaction Hinako had been steeling herself for. She threw him a look that was equal parts irritated and baffled. "...Well?"  
  
    "I can tell you're angling for a very specific reaction, so I'm...kind of waiting for you to elaborate," Yamato finally said. "Do you want me to be mad about it or what?" Hinako threw her shoulders back and glared at him harder.  
  
    "You ass! You don't care at all?"  
  
    A short bark of laughter erupted from Yamato's throat, and he offered her an incredibly sarcastic salute with his wine cooler. "Correct. I pretty unambiguously do not give a hot shit about where any of you dinguses take field trips." He slid around her and walked off again, dismissing her without another word, but Hinako was hot on his heels and thrust herself in front of him again.  
  
    "What about that secret file? What is the Citizen Refinement Agenda? What the hell are you hiding? We want to know!"  
  
    Hinako seemed to have discovered the end of Yamato's patience. He reared back from her as she got into his face again and narrowed his eyes into cold slits. "Jesus Christ, what's with the Twenty Questions? You want to know my blood type, birthday, and favorite sex position too? I have to warn you, it's pretty unexciting. The answers are I don't know, who gives a shit, and the one where I lie back and think about how smart and talented I am until I bring myself to a blistering orgasm."  
  
    Again, Yamato tried to sidestep her, and again, Hinako shoved herself in front of him, despite the rictus of disgust contorting her features. Yamato blew a sharp, impatient breath. "Alright, that's it. In the interest of maintaining the thinnest veneer of 'professionalism' I can muster, I'd prefer to keep my hands firmly away from your person," he snapped, and he jabbed a finger right beneath her nose. "But you have three seconds to get the fuck out of my face before I piledrive all 40kg of your bony ass back to the Mesozoic Era."  
  
    Were it not for the timely intervention of Jungo, Yamato would have found himself with a backful of Airi. "Shut up, Yamato! Don't talk to her like that!" She flailed hard against Jungo's powerful grip, but given her more magical inclinations, it wasn't especially effective.  
  
    Yamato tossed her little more than a sneer and shoved his empty hand into his jacket pocket. "Simmer down, Mini Wheat, or you'll be right behind her." Finally, a harsh sigh burst out of him, and he reached up to pinch the bridge of his nose. "Look," he said, adopting a tone that was as falsely sweet as it was overtly venomous. "I'm in a fabulous mood for the first time in..." He paused and rolled his eyes. "Ever. Don't ruin this for me. Just let me have this, okay? You can ask all your dumb, idiot questions in the morning, I promise." He flicked his hand back out and made a sweeping motion over his chest. "Cross my heart."  
  
    As Yamato slid in a dramatic circle to walk away, the glass bottle shattered in his hand, raining shards over the floor and onto his shiny black boots. He stopped short, staring down at it, then at the bottle neck he still gripped in his fingers. Hibiki winced. He didn't need it confirmed, but he nevertheless peeked over to see Abel with a lazy hand outstretched and the most disdainful expression he'd ever seen pulled across his face.  
  
    Yamato slammed the bottleneck onto the floor and whipped back around. "Fuck it. It is now ruined. Would you like me to go fetch the rest of my wine coolers so you can break them too, you miserable, joy-eating homonculus?" Savagely, he slammed a foot against the back of the chair and spun it, throwing himself into it and glaring at every single one of them. "Alright, hit me. One question per customer, and I reserve the right to answer any question with 'go fuck yourself' at my discretion. Go."  
  
    A tense hush blanketed the entire room, but it didn't last for more than a few seconds. Hinako grit her teeth at him and threw her arms against her chest to fold them. "Why is this happening?"  
  
    Yamato's boot squeaked as he swiveled around to face her and draped himself further in the seat. "Because God is real, and not only does he _not_ love you, he does, in fact, actively despise you, and everyone in this room. We've been deemed unworthy to live and, frankly, I'm beginning to see why. Heaven isn't real, Hell is a construct, and life is meaningless beyond what you ascribe to it. I hope knowing that will help you sleep better at night, but somehow I doubt it."  
  
    He dismissed her with a rude toss of his hair and propped one foot up over his other knee. "Next question."  
  
    Again, silence hung over them, this time for several more seconds. To Hibiki's shock, Makoto was the next to approach him, hesitation clinging to her calves like molasses. "Chief Hotsuin...was that a real answer?"  
  
    Yamato stared at her, then sighed. "Yes, Sako, it was. Your God is 'Polaris'," he noted, bringing his hands up to frame the name with some extremely sarcastic air quotes. "She thinks we're all trash and is erasing the planet. The Septentriones are her apparent method of judgment, so if we finish killing them, she stops trying to murder us. Which is rad, and all, but then we're left with a ravaged planet and pretty much nothing else. I'm gonna be totally honest with you. At this point, all of us dying horribly seems like the best case scenario, because the idea of spending the rest of my life with all of you for company makes me want to fucking hang myself."  
  
    Oh. Well. Lovely. Hibiki swallowed as he tried to process that, which was admittedly difficult when Yamato was being so flippant and everyone else was so on edge. His ability to even try was rendered moot as he watched Daichi fling his arms out. "W- If you knew all this already, why didn't you say anything to anybody?"  
  
    Yamato didn't even attempt to look ashamed. He snorted hard and propped his elbows on both arms of his chair. "Oh, yes, great question. Let's take a little stroll through that scenario, shall we? What would you have done if I'd laid all my cards out on the table on day one? Would you A.) take it all in stride and fight through your mindless panic to successfully kill all the Septentriones like you have now, or would you B.) decide that the entire situation was hopeless and give up like a big, whiny pissbaby because your mortal brain could not possibly conceive of you managing the impossible and actually killing the goddamned things?"  
  
    "That's-" Daichi faltered and fell back closer to Hibiki.  
  
    A gloved hand shot up to silence him. "Next question."  
  
    Io took her place by Daichi's arm and fidgeted, her fingertips squeezing at her wrist. "Wh- what is the Citizen Refinement Agenda?"  
  
    Yamato threw her a weird look. Then he laughed, pitching backwards in his seat. "'Citizen Refinement Agenda'?" he parroted. "That...seems pretty self-evident. I don't know, I think it's charming. Next."  
  
    This time it was Airi who stomped forward, and Hibiki wasn't certain she wouldn't throw herself at him and try to strangle him to death with her bare hands. "I have a question," she snarled at him, her tiny fists locking shut. "Why are you such a huge asshole?!"  
  
    Again, Yamato laughed, and he finally stood from his chair and brushed off his jacket. Then he approached Airi and squished her cheeks between both his hands. "Because I could ritualistically torture your entire family to death right in front of you, and you _still_ could not possibly hate me any more than I hate myself." He shoved her face backwards and spun away to leave. "If you guys are done, I'm bouncing. Hope that was super enlightening for you."  
  
    A bubble of frustration arose in his chest as Hibiki watched him break away from the group. This was entirely avoidable. Now he was pissed, and it was difficult to separate the serious answers from the insults and mockery. He could have gotten sincere answers, he was sure--  
  
    The bubble popped the instant Abel detached from the wall and barred Yamato from the only exit. Then it was replaced by an intense wash of anxiety as he watched the boy pull his pale arms into a loose cross against his chest and stare down at Yamato from where he was floating overhead. "I have a question," he told him, a cold smile overtaking him.  
  
    "Eugh, you don't count."  
  
    Abel ignored his retort and threw him a baleful stare. "What do you intend to do about it?"  
  
    For once, Yamato didn't have anything witty cocked and loaded. He stood there silently for a moment, then gestured behind him and made an irritated noise of disbelief. "Are you serious? You want to do this now? Want me to blow your load right here, right now? Really?"  
  
    Something about that rooted Hibiki to the spot. Your load. He said blow _your_ load. Colorfully gross, but...  
  
_He knew it._  
  
    Hibiki narrowed his eyes and stared at the back of Yamato's head until he pivoted on his heel and sulked. "Fine. Whatever. Polaris wants us all dead because humanity is a collective trash fire, so I'm going to fix it. You're welcome."  
  
    Everyone stared at him, some of them baffled, and some of them pissed, but most of them just confused. "Uh, how?" Daichi called.  
  
    A sour scowl pinched Yamato's pale features. He shoved his hands back into his jacket pockets. "We're going to murder the last Septentriones and then I'll have Polaris re-instate the world as before. With Social Darwinism for everyone. Yaaaay."  
  
    Otome blurted in shock. "Social Darwinism? What?" She and Makoto exchanged bewildered expressions. In Yamato's defense, he didn't look any more thrilled about his own words.  
  
    "Yeah. We're all shit, so I guess the only answer is to improve as a whole, whether we like it or not. It'll be a regular Ayn Randian paradise," he muttered, his nose wrinkling. "So that's it. No more secrets. Congratulations, you know as much as I do. I can tell you guys are pumped about it. You brought it on yourselves, frankly. At least now while you lie awake staring at your ceiling, you can use your time to think about whether you're going to cast your lot with me and my super rad meritocracy, or if you want to be the first ones evolution wipes out of the gene pool."  
  
    Finally, he turned again and strode away from them, shoving Abel out of his way and disappearing into the hallway.  
  
    Hibiki's breath caught in his chest. He knew it. He _knew_ it. Damn it. His arms fell slack at his sides, and he looked over to see Hinako's entire body vibrating with rage. "The _hell_?! That asshole. How can he just speak his piece and leave like that?! What the hell is he talking about, meritocracy?"  
  
    Almost at once, everyone turned to face Makoto and Otome. Makoto shook her head slowly. "I...can't clarify anything he said. Chief Hotsuin has never said anything remotely like this before."  
  
    Hibiki knew she wasn't referring to his brand new vocabulary alone. He wanted to install a meritocracy and hadn't told anyone, not even his highest levels of staff. Well. 'Wanted' was a stretch. He had to be prodded into it by a boy who refused to interfere in their affairs.  
  
    Until Wednesday.  
  
    Jesus, they way he'd spoken to them. The way he spoke to Yamato thinking he was Abel! Hibiki slid both his palms across his burning face. He should have just trusted himself the instant he suspected.  
  
    He jerked his head to see Abel -- or Yamato, rather -- staring at the hallway his body had vanished down. He needed to talk to him. He had to get at least one of them to just admit it before things collapsed any further. It obviously wouldn't be tonight, though. Right as Hibiki reached him, Abel snapped his pale fingers and winked out of sight, leaving him standing there.  
  
    What a mess. Abel was angry, Yamato was angry, and now all his friends were upset and offended. And they still had the sixth Septentrione hanging over their heads.  
  
    Tomorrow. He had to talk to them. If they fractured here and now, there was no way they'd be able to wipe out the seventh Septentrione too.  
  
    He just hoped they'd actually get that far.


End file.
